Shrapnel
by TheRavenBlade
Summary: When children start disappearing from the neighbourhood, the Swollen Eyeballs send Dib in to investigate. It all goes downhill from there... ((Supernatural-themed horror - warnings inside. Rating may change if depravity increases.)) Still working but I'm still really stuck... After all this time, too. I'm sorry.
1. Burst(Sweet Saturdays of Kill Bill)

**A/N: I'd advise a tactful retreat if the following do not suit you; death, gore, mindfucks, whiny author's notes, monsters inspired from folklore that have been turned up to eleven, dark themes, gore, potential fwiendships and general shippery between IZ characters, mediocre comedy, and... Was gore mentioned? I think so. I'll say it again, just in case. Yeah. This might become an M-rated fic later. For now, I say disturbed, teens like me can _luuuurve_ this just as much as those with developed sexual function. :P**

* * *

There'd been no blood, no wounds, and no corpses. No spectators, and no suspects. Not even any punks who'd claimed they'd "been there" for a brief taste of newspaper fame.

Poonchy had just vanished one night, and the only things he'd left behind were his attire, a disturbed snowdrift, and a pile of scattered dust in the city park.

Then Penny had followed.

Then Letty and Francine.

Then Old Kid.

Five missing persons within a complete total of twenty-one that'd been spaced over six years - suddenly happening one after the other in one week. All cases showed the same symptoms, yet no cause had been pegged.

Dib tucked his chin into his scarf when a particularly harsh bout of wind stabbed at his jaw. The witching hour was upon the city, and the moon glistened down upon the pale snow coating it. The terrain's icy shroud was a whole nine inches of powdery crap that loved disassembling from the ground so it could cut through the air and serrate your skin with the breeze's assistance. Wasn't a help for anyone, even in thirst – with the pollution's backing, it all tasted like dish soap.

Lifelessly brushing against that "dish soap" was the parka of an adolescent girl, tangled in a wall of neon-yellow police tape. A couple feet away, strewn listlessly on the ground were two other fashionable parkas, covering that dust in their fabric guts.

The camera clicked in fledgling detective's hands, taking shots of various angles. The police, predictably, had been useless, reserving this as a matter for the experts; for a specialized Swollen Eyeball agent, to be exact.

At least, Dib considered himself specialized. This was his eighth or so official mission, even if it was just simple reconnaissance. After all his cracktastic screw-ups, he was surprised he was still on the agent roster at all, to be honest. Oh well.

The boy frowned at the bits of murk in his pictures, but accepted that this was best lighting he was ever going to achieve and moved on. Carefully, he knelt beside one of the parkas, and scooped some of the dust inside into a small beaker he produced from his pocket for analysing later. One of the perks of having an absentee, world-renowned scientist for a father was that you got all the good investigating toys to work with.

Not that Dib would relate the murder of these kids to a game. He hadn't descended that far into madness yet.

At least, that's what Dib hoped.

Despite his winter attire, Earth's saviour felt a bit of a chill nestling around his bones. From his collection of awesome trench-coats, he'd selected one a bit thicker than normal that buttoned itself up along his left side, with a shorter tail to make walking less constricted. A black-and-blue striped scarf poked out from the coat collar to warm his face, and a complementary set of Swollen Eyeball earmuffs closed around his skull. If it weren't for these two articles of clothing (and his pale skin) he would've camouflaged perfectly with the black, spindly trees freckling the park, and the shadows rolling along under the clouds.

Wasn't much on him to speak of otherwise, spare the not-quite, but-pretty-darn-indestructable-nonetheless-stake-of-some-dead-vampire-slayer-or-another hiding under his coat he'd bought off a hobo for a sandwich, in case fighting occurred. You could never be too prepared against the unknown, after all.

At any rate, the dreary silence soon broke.

"Agent Mothman?" a voice hissed through the wall of black trunks.

Dib flinched and turned, but what he saw wasn't an eldritch abomination, and it was thanks to this fact that he didn't whip his stake at it.

Instead he scowled. And it was only thanks to basic human law that he didn't whip his stake it.

" _Why,"_ Dib deadpanned in a tone so flat it gave Bloaty's roadkill a run for its money.

"' _Why'_? Because…" the stranger gave a big grin, lowering his sunglasses as he exited the pitch shade. This 'stranger' was a lanky fellow in a Matrix-themed trench coat, with short dark hair (currently covered by a strange, puke-green beanie embroidered with dumbass smiling emoji), a squared jaw and an oh-so-punchable curved nose, _"I,_ am Agent _Frankenchokey,_ and I-"

"Bill why are you a Swollen Eyeball Agent," Dib rephrased, rolling his eyes.

"Wait a minute. I know you!" gasped the elder man, "You're that big-headed kid from Career day… _Doob!"_

"Ugh, that's not- oh, whatever. Let's pretend that didn't happen. Why are you with the Swollen Eyeballs, Bill?"

Bill, in case you, dear viewer, did not recognize him, was the closest thing to suave as an overgrown man-child could get, and the guy lost no points for style on that front. He made sure to use cool terms, and spoke nice, low, and brisk – plus, he carried a nice aesthetic with him that just bordered on trying-to-hard without falling flat. The fraud lost points everywhere else, however, as despite his field as a paranormal investigator, he was about as retarded as balls.

"Agent Frankenchokey to you!" Bill dramatically pointed, "I am on board with you closed-minded nutjobs, because…" the man slowly slicked down his coat for cool, dramatic effect, "…See, I'm on the _lam_. Coco-Fang – Coco-Fang set me up for _murder_ , man. Eyeballs offered me sanctuary in exchange for research, and I need friends right now. I'm closer to catching him than ever, I can feel it in my bones!" He posed, shaking his fist to the lifeless skies, full of drama.

"Are you trying to say that you were assigned to me for this case, Bill?" Dib asked, praying it wasn't true and knowing full well how vain a wish it was, "And are you already jumping to the conclusion that this was all done by a Cereal mascot?"

"Yes! …Well, no! You were supposed to go solo for this one, but I swear, Count Coco-Fang's written all over this mess of a case! I begged and begged 'til they caved! So now…" Bill rushed over and snatched Dib up to eye-level by his shoulders, much to the twelve year old's obvious discomfort, "You're gonna show me the ropes for how you Eyeball-guys do things!"

"Uh…" Dib glanced over his shoulder to coats, trying to ignore how Bill's eager breath stunk and fogged his glasses. The physical contact felt like squishing, temperate ants on his bones… "You're kinda late then, since this was just supposed to be a recon assignment. I stopped by Poonchy and Old Kid's remains already, took pictures and a bit of their dust, and just now I finished up with the girls. Really, I'm gonna head back home, maybe grab a hot chocolate if Sweet-Sick shop is open, and e-mail what I've got to Darkbootie..."

Bill glared long and hard at Dib's face. _"…Oh!"_ he exclaimed, releasing the boy to plummet into the snow, "Well, _I_ see how it is. You're the kind of kid who just does as he's told, aren't you?! Well," Bill triumphantly turned to the wall of trees, "I ain't moving til' I meet Coco-Fang! That sack of garbage's gonna rue the day he crossed BILL."

Dib coughed up as much of the snow as he could, and spared a glare to the fellow agent's back. He'd started off being done with the screwball, and that sentiment had grown to the point that he didn't know what he was feeling anymore. He got to his knees in the cold blanket.

"Bill, Coco-Fang _DOESN'T EXIST!"_ he shouted, letting his veins go hot with hate, "HE'S A STUPID MASCOT THAT TURNS BLAND FOOD INTO DIABETIC INGREDIENTS! HE'S USUALLY PLAYED BY _HOBOS BECAUSE THE COMPANY'S TOO CHEAP TO HIRE ACTUAL ACTORS, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!"_

Bill did not hear a word. "You hear me, you pilferer of children's dreams?!" he carried on forward menacingly, " _Bill ain't going nowhere."_

Depending on how you interpret the following events, this was either hilariously inaccurate, or snicker-worthingly correct.

Because in the shadows, an appendage lunged out and skewered Bill right through his chest.

Dib froze.

Bill, trembling, stuttered out a sound, but the words were clogged with his blood. The monstrous tendril exiting out his back wrenched its pointed end about, gleaming in the moonlight as the body writhed around its form, shaking, and bleeding into the snow a foot below. Slowly, the appendage snaked up in a sort of curve, letting the body slide down into the wet unceremoniously, twisting and reaching for anything to latch onto. Dib swallowed and almost reached out for him, but simply could not get the ice in his nerves to unlatch. He quavered instead, clenched tightly on himself. Liquid red confetti burst from the investigator's lips and a long, despairing gargle rung out into the night, the hole in his ribcage emptying into the white earth.

However, the limb wasn't done. Deliberately, it descended to the gaping hole within the chest cavity. The human shell sloshed and squeaked apart in protest, but these biological clamours did not persuade the limb. A strange light crept out from the curved bones, and after its minute of hovering inside it exited with a glowing sort of wisp in its grasp. A small, weak thing in a ball-like shape that defiantly flickered orange before being slipped back into the shadows of the trees.

Dib could only watch as the man's eyes went milky and dull upon its removal. The once normal skin turned brittle and starting peeling off his bones like shredded paper, a jigsaw coming undone, crusting and sprinkling itself around the body before converting into the powder. The same fate affected every layer of the investigator, disrobing his tissue and his bones and his marrow. His blood lost colour and evaporated at a rapid pace, leaving no evidence that Bill had ever existed beyond the dust spiralling out, and the punctured jacket that lay crumpled in on itself in awkward angles.

Dib almost choked as a silhouette attached to the massive (rapidly normalizing) limb slowly crunched forward from the trees – a familiar character, with a cloaked figure who leered down at the captured orange wisp, like a prize.

"No one likes a line-cutter," tsked the fanged man, pinching the orb(?) with the mostly-now-normal human limb, "Or people who dig into things that don't concern them. You'd think, you would've learned your lesson way back when… Alas…"

It was Coco-Fang, but… But, everything was wrong. Maybe the grotesque amounts of eyeshadow amplified the effect, but his face looked so much like cheap plastic, and his mouth twisted at a strange angle and, and… Coco-Fang's spine started distending as he rose up, dangling the ball – Dib could only assume it was Bill's soul – over his maw before swallowing the damn thing whole.

"Wha… What are you?" Dib breathed, slowly drawing the stake. "Coco-Fang" drooped his eyelids, and sneered at him.

"Heh. Doesn't _really mATTER, BRAT,"_ the voice became distorted. Coco-Fang's expression suddenly went dead, and the rest of him distended as a creature seemed to leave out its back, leaving nothing more than a smiley puppet behind. This puppet, too, turned to dust.

" _YOU'RE ON THE LIST."_

Dib shuddered as the creature grew in height. It was a hovering, liquidy smoke at first, then it began developing a wriggling sort of dark membrane to swathe it, layering itself again and again as it gradually became more solid. The boy could hear bones snapping under, gore(?) slithering and developing inside… The new, and still rising skin mirrored ocean waves as content filled it, and emergent clawed limbs stretched out to slink along the ground. Wind started to scream and bite past the whole area – it sliced along his pores…

Dib didn't wait for it to finish its transformation. He made a bunch of distressed noises, took a quick picture, and finally woke his nerves up to book it right out of there.

There was no way in hell he was gonna be facing _THAT._

White breath tore out his lips as he darted through the woods, stabbing at the ground with his quick strides. Blood rushed, wind whipped past him, his scarf tore off his neck and fluttered in the his wake of desperate footprints. He fingered at a pocket and didn't even care if the camera had made it in or not.

The outcast zigzagged through the dead trunks, jumped over a log, and struggled to breathe in general. His lungs burned and struggled for the air serrating past his scrawny body. Drums resounded in his ribs, vibrated the bone. His spit grew thick in the base of his mouth.

In the distance behind him, he could hear something screeching.

He was halfway to the lamplighting littering through streets, when things began breaking. Wooden arms snapped in halves above him – hurtling down like shrapnel. His own arm followed when a massive brute broke through overhead and crashed down not one foot from his side, sending Dib sprawling across the ground from the rupture.

One merry _SNAP_ to start the list of things Dib would need professional help with later.

Pain broke through his skin like a dam. Wincing, he spat out some snow(god it tasted awful) and spared a glance to his radius, which had been fractured just enough to give Zim's logic a run for its money. A piece of bone poked out his skin, as if to say hello, much to Dib's hiss of revilement.

A yelp exploded out his lungs as a deformed hand lunged for him. Now with his nerves safely unfrozen, the outcast threw himself to feet(wincing terribly at the throbbing in his limb) right as the claws impaled his snow-angle's chest. The murk and white winds fell over the screeching behemoth, trying to unlatch its digits from the permafrost. The head held a strangely goat-like silhouette, but once again Dib did not wait to observe it further. He simply whipped the stake with his good arm at its chest and stumbled into a full-sprint once the thing started screaming. Before he knew it, the boy was off again to the lights pouring in from the cracks that spelled out the city paths to his home.

The thing screamed his name.

Convulsions rippled through the earth. He could hear the splatters of matter sloshing into the snow once the hand was freed, and a presence thundering after his spine. Getting closer by the second.

He could hear trees crashing and feel desperate, coppery exhale crawl on his neck and the racing pace of the creature in his feet. Teeth were snapping-

 _A forked tongue darted at his nape_

This awful lurch thronged in his guts, the hot breath overwhelmed his senses… That creature's maw was opening, too.

The road was inbound…!

Instinct shrieked at him to roll once he reached the road, as jaws crunched at the air where his head once was. Membrane's eldest stuck close to the terrain, tucking correctly and coming to his feet with nary a disturbance to his arm(ugh, but he did wince a bit regardless, gods that smarted). The beast struggled to slow its run and redirect its course when there was no child in its path, but Dib had already reached the barren roads of the city and was tracing the streets to his neighbourhood.

Signs flared by of street-shops. Traffic signs, advertisements and billboards. Busted buildings, corner stops. No people out of course, because why would there be anybody to help Dib? Too cold, too lifeless, too many police warnings not to. Dib, given his luck, would probably be considered insane for being out there, _especially_ with the winds as they were now.

The sections of the city meant for housing pedestrians drew near. Several blocks were down – the creature had gone silent, but Dib knew not to take any chances, especially since he only had three to go. A stitch was developing in the Mothman's side, but as usual he chose to ignore it. He'd been through worse with…

Zim.

Huh, Zim's house was getting really close, he realized.

Dib almost slowed his frantic pace as the familiar, narrow walls approached his line of sight. The artificial residence still hung onto the condos shrouding it with its bulky metal tubes, and its windows were brightly lit, insinuating that the local alien threat was probably watching TV at the moment(the holidays were coming up, that meant all kinds of specials on the air. Zim did love tearing those apart…). The same, unchanged field of gnomes stood in the yard, utterly dead and sparking in their places. Considering the puddles, the smoking holes in the fence, burn marks on the teal and the massive tears left in the earth around them, Dib could only assume that Zim had ordered them to do no less than incinerate every snowflake that dared drift into the vicinities. Since the security threats were down and Dib looked messed up enough, maybe Zim would give him sanctuary from the eldritch abomination…?

…

"Nah, Zim's a jerk," Dib chimed aloud, donning a determined(and fairly winded) expression. "Besides, I've got t-"

A car suddenly smashed into his body.

A vacant car, thrown from across the street by a nine-foot monster, smashed at several miles an hour to project him across the asphalt and into the side of his enemy's home as a cowlicked gore-splatter – a 1500 pound, effective yellow pin.

With an annoying alarm.

Dib wheezed, his nerves alight in intense agony as practically everything he could see on him was turning crimson. Wincing from the blare of sound, he tried to rise, but even he knew deep down this was impossible. Glass from a busted headlight brushed against his intestines, digging deep into his guts, sending his throat soaring with thick fluids to wash down his chin. Piercing sensations spotted across the entire world within his ribs, now that their casing had completely shattered. Punctured lungs, impaled arteries, bones broken beyond repair... His vision was slipping about in lucidity, and when his tongue had stretched out in a sad attempt to scream for help, he tasted blood and salt.

He couldn't feel his legs, either.

Yet, despite his cracked and twisting vision(his glasses were barely holding onto his head), he could still fuzzily see across the street.

There was a great, black smudge against the blizzard. Its eyes glowed a dull garnet.

One foot after another, it drew near yet nearer still. The body still seemed to lack proper foundation, shambling against itself with every footstep, but it still towered masterfully, black and wraithlike. Despite the beginnings of death that cuddled Dib's mind, he still took note of the fact one leg's end actually held a decayed, crooked set of human toes, while the other was a big, cloven hoof. A swirling spine extension twirled in the wind behind it, and a set of curled horns sat on its skull.

It raised a finger, and a sole, black tendril rose from the ground. The limb that'd claimed Bill.

It pierced into Dib's chest, much like it had for the former agent.

Oh, the magnitude of the Mothman's scream. How the blood and pain and lack of air forced it to resound inside his own throat and push through his whole frame without any mercy of release. Unlike Bill, though, who's nerves hadn't been crushed, this pain slowly began to drain out with his blood. Dazed and slipping away, the boy could just make out the faintest trails of light crawling from the open wound, gliding against his face and glasses and leaving him so, so cold and numb. It was blue in shade, and the more he saw, the more it felt like he'd been split from his own life, his body. Everything that was "him", sent to pour gently out into a void in distant space. A rapidly stilling ripple on a sleeping world. The brighter the light got, the darker everything else did...

Was that light… His soul, then?

It was quite… Pretty… It looked rough around the edges… Still burning in spite of everything anyway...

Well, at least the sheer magnitude of the impact was enough of a noise to rally Zim from whatever shitty special was on. Dib couldn't quite see the black-clothed digits pinching the door out the corner of his eye, but he could hear their owner's voice, like it was underwater.

"Ugh… DO YOU HAVE _NO_ CAPABILITIES OF _COMPREHENSION?!_ No amount of knocking – regardless of how impressive it is – will rouse Zim enough to join you in this… Jelly-nova witness gathering place!" the alien's voice hissed, "So give up, you pathetic humans! Give up and wallow in your self-inflicted SHAME! Good day!"

Dib heaved, trying to at least sound out Zim's name, only to let out a sad, sad squeak instead.

Surprisingly, it was good enough. Who would've figured that the sound of incurable suffering was sufficient to beckon Zim from his base?

He was in disguise. Over the last year, the parasite hadn't changed much at all. His eyes were suspicious little slits at the moment, looking everywhere but Dib's flattened body, the soul-stealing-goat-monster, and the hysterically wailing car. Instead, he scanned his yard and other such useless tripe like the idiot he was…

"Hey, why's it smell like smoke anyway-" the Invader line of thought ended when he caught the boy's hand weakly reaching out for him. Apparently, if Zim's look of complete revulsion and horror was anything to go by, the outcast wasn't looking too pretty, "…Dib!? WHAT'S- YOU-?!" he sputtered for a bit, trying to make a coherent statement. The horror in big, purple eyes certainly contrasted with that stupid, red Christmas sweater GIR had probably forced on him… "Why are you in a splattered car pancake?! Why're your guts and blood-candies spilled everywhere?! _WHAT IS THAT?!"_

As if to answer in our dear child's place, the creature glanced to Zim. Distending its neck, it creaked its mean, slim head in the alien's direction and gave him a smile.  
A long, long, smile filled with at least several hundreds of white razors. The black vine coiled around a now comatose Dib's soul, and slowly began to draw itself out from the squelching meat…

Evidently, Zim did not like that answer.

The Invader snarled at the creature, reached into his PAK and took out a small panel with a button attached. He slammed this button and in response the roof to his home raised, revealing several lazer cannons aiming right at it.

Off the fireworks went, searing through the corrupted flesh. Plasma blasts, foreign elements, pure compiled radiation, plain old bullets. It let out an almost obligatory roar, but it soon began to fade from existence with pressure. Even in sleep, Dib almost sighed as the thing released his soul, its tail falling apart. The glow from his wound stopped, and the distant, cold feeling felt less unnatural now. It transferred into more of the ungodly agonizing sensation from earlier as his consciousness started flickering. One last encore of his existence, perhaps.

Great.

However. From the black, dissolving cloud that was once the monster's form, the last thing to go was its head. Said head locked its eyes with the alien. It didn't curse, or cry, or do anything of the sort.

Instead, it gave a soft, cruel little smirk, the sort that was like a mixing of honey and gin.

" _This doesn't matter. You're on the list,"_ it rasped.

And then it was no more.

Zim drank the words for a moment with suspicion. He then shrugged them off and hopped triumphantly on top of the car pinning his mortal enemy.

"You look AWFUL, Dib," he smirked, before gaining a scowl when he didn't respond beyond feeble attempts at breathing, "Did you have to pick a death-method so NOISY though? I mean, this thing's like… _Eew_. Listen at it. Listen AT IT AND WEEP, FOR THIS IS NOT ZIM'S LAUGHTER AND INSTEAD THE SAD WAILS OF A PATHETIC EARTH VEHICLE. …Anyway… …YOU HAVE MET YOUR DEATH ON THE DOORSTEP OF ZIM! You!... You… …you…" Zim's little rant suddenly lost momentum, it seemed, and the Irken looked around, like he'd find what he'd wanted to say graphitized in the singed ground around him somehow. "…Okay, you know what? I'm mad at you. Yes, Dib-STINK, Zim is mad at you! You let yourself get killed by something else, despite everything Zim has done?! How DARE YOU! I have half a mind to-"

As expected, Dib didn't really get to form a response to any of Zim's words.

Because his heart decided to completely stop right there.

* * *

 **A/N: Man, that's a lot of death for one chapter.**

 **My inspiration?**

… **Menstrual cramps. Gonna roll with menstrual cramps. (More like gonna roll to the medicine cabinet, FUCK MY GUUUUUTTTSSSS)**

 **I've wanted to return to the pen for a while now. Had problems with getting motivated… You know how it is, yeah? I feel super rusty, and THIS feels rusty, but that's probably me overestimating my potential and being too critical of what I put down. I might clean this up and edit it piece by piece as time goes by... Yeah. I'm one of _those_ writers. My apologies in advance, heh.**

 **This project's been on my mind for some time, and I wanted it shared. I might make it ZADR at some point down the line, but eh. We'll see if it works to the story's favour. Gotta keep the boys decently in-character, after all, and perhaps it'll just be some prickly ZADF instead. Thinkin' I'll pull a fandom inverse and value the plot over romance. I mean, I've got an outline for where this is gonna go, but I think I'll let some things write themselves, yeah?**

 **Horror and angst with mehopes some nice stuff and laughs inbound. Demons, character destruction… Yeah.**

 **Maybe, if all the stars align, and we all pray, and the great Greek muses come and bless me with all the wellsprings of inspiration on this planet…**

… **I might write Chapter 2.**


	2. Amateur Frankenstein(Corpses Don't Grin)

**A/N: YO, YO I GOT A JOKE FOR THE LAST CHAPTER, JUST** _ **HIT ME**_

 **WHAT'S BLACK, WHITE, AND RED ALL OVER?**

 **:** _ **DIB**_

 **HAHAHAHAHAHAHA THAT JUST CAME TO ME WHILE I WAS TYPING I'M A GENIUS HAHA I'M GOING TO HELL** _ **FUCK MY LIFE**_

…

 **Well in other news the, uh, last chapter got… Excellent reception.**

 **Two short-and-sweet-ish reviews, and like, twenty others who just clicked on this, who's to say they read it… But, I guess with this installment, we'll see how many of you are genuinely interested in this rabbit hole. I also got a favourite and two follows, too, and that's always awesome! :3**

 **I HAD written so much over the week, but it really didn't feel dynamic enough. Like, the tone I was trying for kept faltering, or the descriptions kept getting too out of hand(I mean, at one point I had a sci-fi action chase scene. Yeah, theorize how well THAT fit… Might make that into another fic when I'm done, though, since it was mad bitchin'.) Either way, here's the update! A bit short, but still cool, right? I'm gonna try to aim for a two-week updating bracket with this (I will be flexible with myself, however, if I have too much school or if I feel like what's here is inadequate. I mean, you want my _goods,_ or do you want my _shit?_ )**

 **Uggghhh…. I STILL FEEL SO RUSTY AND GROSS AND I HATE IT 8-8**

 **I love whining.**

… **Enjoy! ^^**

* * *

Hate. An emotion that salivated at the thought of mayhem and destruction. It didn't take a genius to understand why Zim reveled in it so.

Formed unwittingly and discovered unwittingly, it'd been gently blanketed inside the naïve core of his smeet-self. They never learned how it'd gotten there – whether it'd grown inside his mind like a tumour, if it'd just washed in one day, or if it'd been truly him all along remained a mystery even now. In the end, it didn't terribly matter to its host. Peeling the layers apart to let it grow and burn had provided Zim's life with a loss of weakness, and in exchange his dearest friend. As a concept with many, many arms, hate liked hugging, so in response, many experiences and people fell into the hate's embrace – bound and strangled by Zim's contempt to be nothing more than things to spit on. It curled through his fingers and exploded from his teeth whenever it could be spurred to life. As a rule, the Invader was always ready for its fire to forge new schemes.

If there was ever a concept – a very _existence_ – that suffocated in Zim's hate, it was most certainly the Dib. Zim frequently thought of him, be it drowned, strangled, flayed, imploded, choking on his own guts, experimented on, fed to a Hogulus, or just staring onwards in pure despair once his whole precious planet turned to ash in his palms. His fantasied torture was nothing short of a classic pastime, really. And while earning Zim's distaste wasn't too hard, it was another altogether to be so _swaddled_ by it. Furthermore, to be such a bother, that Zim wouldn't stop scheming until a method so perfect and so grand that it destroyed each and every level of the individual it centered around had been cooked... This sort of obsession just wasn't something that happened to a normal somebody. This was something you had to fight for.

The pestilence of Dib deserved a truly fitting end.

And boy. This was _not_ a fitting end.

Truly, it was off-putting to see the human so devoid of vitality. No noises, no energetic expressions, no accusations. Currently, he was just… Sprawled against the operation table, dormant of respiration or inane reveries. His hair was messy as ever, it was still his face, but shortly before, he'd rested with contorted bones and a half-lidded gaze for something far away. Red had oozed out from manufactured tears in his skin, no better than a ripped shoe or an upturned sidewalk.

By Zim's standards, that was not the relic of a glorious conquest.

That was _garbage._

Utter, used, and useless.

 _Someone else's garbage._

The Irken growled at the memory. Awful goat… Thing… Whatever it was. Taking the victory right out of Zim's hands, who'd it think he _was?_

The boy wasn't salvaged quite yet. But with Zim's fingers skittering through the workings, that'd change in time. While the Irken was militant, Dib was still deeply cocooned by death. A stopped clock, with allayed cogs and missing gears. Oblivious to the blaring light overhead or the flurry of engineering undergoing beneath his collarbone, his once fiery eyes remained gently shut and his expression calm, lips slightly parted as if in sleep. Whatever colour that'd once been apparent in his youthful features had long slunk from his skin, leaving a milky hue to cloak his bony frame instead. Stripped naked, the paleness of him was interrupted by not only a spaced wound bursting with red from his chest to his abdomen, but several dark, stitched scars pooled around his spindly limbs. As it stood, his tranquility was something unnerving that needed a fix.

"This isn't charity, _Dib-carcase,"_ Zim hissed, a bloodied glove reaching into a metal crate beside the operation table, "Once this is over, you'll be wishing the maggots had used your meat-suit as a breeding chamber."

He continued in the low tone. "Oh, you'll suffer before we're done, Dib…" he quietly hissed, "Your _screams_ will pay for this annoyance."

Resting in the folds of Zim's palm was an object roughly the size of Dib's hand. A sectioned organ, with severed tubes flowering from the top, with an almost rumpled surface. Light-weight, deep in slumber, cool, and without blood to race in, colourless.

It was and wasn't the human's heart – the act of cloning organs was something pretty mundane to perform in the illustrious lab of Zim. Just slice bits of the specimens, throw 'em in a specific vat, and two minutes later, voila. Replicated and ready for use. The majority of the boy's parts had been given the treatment; a lung, most of his abdominal area, spleen, both kidneys, liver, numerous bones, some sections of deeper skin tissue, an eye... Mammalian organisms were pretty complex puzzles, each piece curved in a specific way to make a working creation. As it stood, the long scars trailing down from where his bones had been replaced, Dib was nearly finished. Kinda.

Sliding it within its predestined nook, snug and safe, the heart sat comfortably with its squishy kin. After ten seconds of tinkering, Zim gave it a childish pat and drew his hand out the fissure in Dib's chest.

Everything was in order. Gingerly, the Irken's slim fingers plucked up the last tools. A silver needle, thread, tiny scissors… And a sandwich. Taking a big bite for luck(Yum…), Zim began pulling the unfolded skin over the ribs once more, sealing them together with twine. Sorta like a stuffed toy.

Now, basic stitching was a method that would've seemed beneath a creature as sophisticated as an Irken mastermind. Surely, somewhere, scattered within all Zim's high-tech goodies, there must've been some sort of healing gel, or medicinal power tool, or hell, just something more constructive than _embroidery_ to ensure a more advanced healing process, right?

Well, there probably was.

But that was just it. Dib didn't deserve any of them.

More accurately, most of those required the reaction of living tissue to be useful at all, but with some tweaking using them in this case was theoretically possible. Their differing biology would've been tricky to formulate around, too, but even working around this was still far from impossible.

But these all would've ensured less scarring.

Zim wanted Dib to understand this inconvenience he allowed to befall.

He wanted Dib to carry a reminder, deeply seared in his flesh, of his failure.

Mostly, he wanted Dib to wake up, and for the rest of his life to realize that the only reason he'd ever be able to draw breath again would be because Zim had allowed him such a basic privilege.

Dib was his to ruin.

Zim swallowed the Grakken-sliced meal. Of course, simply putting a dead organism back together wasn't enough to bring it back screaming and kicking. He wasn't that naïve…

The boom of the Computer's vocal circuits swatted Zim from a decent amount of his concentration.

" **MASTER. RESEARCH HAS BEEN DOWNLOADED AND ANALYSED."**

 _"EXCELLENT,_ Computer!" Zim eagerly hissed, looking with anticipation to the wide monitor resting against the lab's curved wall, "What have you found?"

" **HUMAN NECROMANCY IN RECENT TIMES HAS ONLY BEEN ATTEMPTED IN… 'SECRET'… BY EXCOMMUNICATED GENERAL RUSSEL SLAB RANKLE – HEAD OF SECURITY AND SELF-PROCLAIMED GUARDIAN OF CITY CENTRAL MALL-"**

"IT'S IN THE MALL?... RAISING FROM THE DEAD SUBSTANCES ARE IN THE MALL?!" Zim cried in confusion and some extent of honest glee, "How convenient! Scarily convenient, actually, wonder why humans even bother with funerals and hospitals if they can just buy the stuff to defy mortality- OH WHO CARES!" grinning like an idiot, he ignored the body and hopped on top of the table, utterly delighted by this information, "This whole MESS can be destroyed and remoulded into glorious, accepted routine easily now! Dib's torment can resume! All the momentous _ZIM!_ – must do is-!"

" **WAIT, WAIT, MASTER. IT'S NOT SO SIMPLE. YOU RECALL SLAB RANKLE, RIGHT?"**

I c-Wait, Slobber-Ankle?" he paused his joy, antenna now slipping upwards in confusion, "The heck is _that?"_

" **ERR… THE… GUY?"** the monitor filled with a scribbly-drawn image of a squarish older human, with silver hair and expressed veins pulsing out his forehead and neck – a pencil-crayon doodle Zim had included before the Tallest stopped asking for weekly reports, **"HE TRIED TO STOP YOU FROM RETURNING AN OVERDUE FILM BECAUSE OF A MISUNDERSTANDING? HE'S INSANE? YOU INCLUDED HIM IN A REPORT A COUPLE MONTHS AGO… HE OFFERED TO CO-JOIN RULERSHIP OF THE MALL AFTER YOU BESTED HIM, MASTER. IT'S** _ **THAT**_ **GUY."**

Oh, right. Now, while the Irken may have identified small victories as that – victories – to tell the truth, he rather disliked the memory of that eccentric human and how it oozed out from the deepest depths of his annoyance… In Slab Rankle's defense, he was a man of great height who owned impressive shoulders and defensive measures. Aside that, though, Zim almost felt sorry for him. A raving psychopath, stuck in a dead-end job, believing he was doing his best for his superiors when he was nothing more than a stashed-away pawn. Who could live with themselves if that was their lot in life? Zim took another bite of his Foodcourtia-ordered meal and sneered at the thought.

"Ah yes. Well, eh, that was a nice challenge an-" he paused once his memories finished panning out, images flashing through and retailing strange, strange truths, "Wait a minute. That guy had Zombies."

The Irken paused, thinking carefully.

"…Eh. The whole 'zombie-soldiers' thing… This is what you refer to when you say… _Necromancy_ , yes?"

"… **UH, YEAH."**

The laughter began awkwardly and never really picked up from there.

"Heh. Heh-eh. EEHEHEHEH. Eh-HEHEHEHEHEH… …Oh, Computer, my loyal interface I can't even _is this a joke to you?!"_ the indignation was enough for Zim to slam his little boot on the operation table, just missing Dib's head. " _That_ idiot has the stuff?! It is HE who sits on the cure?! You must have better results than that, Computer! Come on! Zombification is no alternative for Dib's Dibbiness of awful! Look at him! He's gross enough as it is! We can't wreck him anymore than THIS!"

" **I'M AFRAID IT'S ALL I COULD FIND,"** the thing gave a simulated sigh, **"MASTER, PLEASE. NOT EVEN THE IRKEN EMPIRE HAS SUCCESSFULLY CURED DEATH. LIKE, THERE WERE NOTICES OF A CASE ABOUT SEVEN YEARS AGO IN THIS AREA, BUT IT WAS A SERIOUS DEAD-END AND THERE WAS NEXT TO NOTHING ON IT… IF IT'S ANY CONSOLATION, THERE'S A SMOOTHIE STAND RIGHT THEORETICALLY NEARBY THE ZOMBIE CONVERSION LAB? THE HUMANS RUNNING IT ARE TOO CHEAP FOR WATER, SO THEY USE LEFTOVER SOAP? SO IT WON'T BURN YOU-"**

"But Dib can't be himself as a drooling zombie! He's still technically a corpse then! THIS _SUCKS!"_ Zim collapsed dramatically to his knees to resume the needlework. The future, and all Zim's dreams of its conquest, had been brewing in his skull so lovingly. Now this just threw vomit into the pot. How could it be remedied...? He yanked the thread extra-hard to show his dismay, ignoring the jerking of the corpse under, _"You have let Zim down, Computer...!"_

" **YOU COULD ALWAYS MODIFY IT?"** the machine tried to offer. Unfortunately, this only summoned another awkward/deranged chuckling, albeit less serving as a lid for Zim's rage, and more along the lines of something not even trying to hide its bitter flavour.

 _"Feh._ Just like how _Zim_ could make a formula from scratch! The problem is _time…!_ So much of it, crawling through my GLORIOUS HANDS-"

Dib's skin tore around the latest stitch.

"GYAAHHHHHHRRRRR _DIB_ I _HATE_ YOUR FLESH'S FLIMSY _PORE-COAT-"_

The Computer paused for the green menace to focus on his swearing and furious stitching for about a minute. To be honest, while the human had become famous for his dark circles at Skool, the ones on Zim currently put them to shame. He hadn't rested for some time…

At one point, the alien leaned close to Dib's bare face. An accusing finger jabbed his forehead, digging in the still skin as he spoke in a low, lethal tone. _"You're loving this, aren't you."_

Gradually, the kitchen-whipped machine worked up the nerve to respond.

" **UH. …WHAT DID YOU MEAN BY… 'TIME' BEING A PROBLEM, MASTER?"**

Zim stared wearily at his surroundings. It felt like his innards were just _deep-frying_ in his hate, irritation, and exhaustion. The entirety of his perception become a frightfully unpleasant cocktail over the last several hours.

Stupid Dib.

Stupid Goat.

He sighed, raking a hand over both his pair of sagging eyes and antenna in a sloppy motion. "Skool… Authorities, Dib's parental figure… JUST TO BEGIN," he tiredly spat, "People notice when members of the race go missing, Computer. If this... Wreck, is gone too long, it could lead back to the base... And then the _MISSION!_ Even IF they don't herd in for the stink-beast, there's just the question of what to do with this vermin now. Zim can't waste months trying to cure something as annoying as HUMAN EXPIRY – I need Dib to not be a carcass for the next ingenious plan to dominate the Earth, so he can die THEN!"

The Computer paused at this information. **"SO… YOU'RE… TRYING TO RESTORE THE HUMAN'S LIFE… …JUST SO YOU CAN END IT** _ **LATER?"**_

"Yes."

"… **DO YOU WANT TO INVESTIGATE THE MALL RIGHT AWAY, MASTER? MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE A LITTLE BREAK. YOU** _ **WERE**_ **UP A SOLID DAY BEFORE THE HUMAN CAME AROUND, WORKING ON SUPER WEAPONS. …THAT EXPLODED. IN YOUR FACE. HEY, DID YOU EVEN GET MEDICAL ATTENTION FOR THAT-"**

"Yes I did, and I'm going to this dumb 'MWALL' soon," a half-hearted wave was given to the speaker, "Even IF it'll be a waste of Zim's precious time and _someone_ could've done better."

The computer sighed again. He knew trying to get his Master to rest was a pointless task. Still, probably for the best, considering...

Hold on.

…Actually, scratch that, he _needed_ to be there, now that the city-scan results had just come through his circuits.

"… **ACTUALLY… EVEN IF THE ZOMBIE-CONVERSION LABS POSSESS NOTHING OF VALUE, YOU MIGHT** _ **REALLY**_ **WANT TO GO TO THE MALL… LIKE, IMMEDIATELY."**

Zim's antenna gave a wilted twitch in annoyance, too busy looping the string through the body. The flare of red was starting to contour up into a nice 'Y'-shaped scar. "And why is that?"

" **THE CREATURE WHO STARTED THIS GAVE OFF A UNIQUE HEAT SIGNATURE. A CITY-SCAN SHOWS SIMILAR READINGS…"** the deep voice paused, **"FOUND BENEATH THE FACILITY."**

The information swam over Zim and dripped deep into his mind.

What?

He turned and creased his face in confusion. He remembered vaporizing the stupid behemoth. Revenge, however shallow it'd been in retrospect, had been his. How could the thought of it still drawing breath elsewhere even be conceivable?

"Computer," Zim quietly spoke, "I think you require replacement. That is impossible."

" **IT'S TRUE, MASTER. ACCORDING TO THE SCAN, IT'S ONLY GOTTEN STRONGER OVER THE PAST HOUR. SERIOUSLY, YOU SHOULD CHECK IT OUT."**

Well, _this_ was an eyebrow-scruncher for the ages.

Zim felt himself stop for a moment in deep thought. What did it even mean? Was there a whole _nest_ of the demonic beasts? What if they were scheming against the warrior? Did the monster just… Regenerate, and come back into being _there_ somehow? Was it just cloned in the mall at the behest of some mastermind, out to usurp Zim and all his wonderful doom away from this noble mission?!

Zim felt himself glower, giving his nemesis one last look-over.

The ownership of the kill reflected all across the build.

A curse panged through his mind.

This could _not_ stand.

Snarling, he removed himself from the side of his nemesis, sure-fired direction lapping at his emotions until all that remained was his eager hate and drive. Stripping the crimsoned gloves from his slender arms, Zim theatrically stepped towards his elevator to his armory.

"Very well. Computer, finish yarning the human's tainted membrane and place him into a stasis tube," he said, fitting his small body on the tube platform, "I don't want him to _rot_ while I'm gone. And when you're done with that, present Zim any horrible information that'd be remotely useful about the horrible target location."

 **"AFFIRMATIVE."**

Inputting a code, Zim felt himself being whisked away to where all his dear weapons of mass destruction rested within one of his favourite rooms in the whole base. Though the target sadly would not be his dear human, at least something festive would come out of this repulsive holiday.

A zipper-toothed grin spread over his features, and for once since Dib's demise did the alien feel something resembling a very familiar glee.

* * *

 **A/N: Not quite the meat-and-potatoes chapter I was praying for… Not bad, I guess. Feels underwhelming, but I did my best...?**

 **Though, I should note that while this one is shorter than the last and not as action-y, I have some good news; approximately 1219 words for chapter 3 have been written, and it's** _ **much**_ **more story-heavy! So that should update faster. :) I hope.**

 **Maybe.**

…

 _ **please oh my god**_

 **Figured it'd be nice to write about how this is affecting Zim and shit. Frankenstein shenanigans are going on between him and Dibbers… And, uh, yeah.**

 **Eh.**

 **It's been a little spruced from last time. But still alright, I think. :)**

 **So hey, uh… Hate to pry, but please, please, PLEASE tell me if Zim is in-character or not because I'm like screaming inside I WANT TO KNOW HOW TO ACCURATELY AND NICELY PORTRAY MY FAVOURITE SPACE BUG IN A WAY THAT SPURS THE PLOT ALONG WHILE GETTING THE CORE DEPRESSING VALUES OF HIS EXISTENCE ACROSS WITHOUT BEING TOO ON-THE-NOSE WHILE KEEPING HIM CHILDISH AND THREATENING AND NOT TOTALLY DESTROYING THE TONE LIKE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND BALANCING HIM IS HAAAAARD AND I DON'T WANNA OVERDO/UNDERVALUE HIS QUIRKS MAN LIKE TELL ME 8-8**

… **So yeah, that was chapter 2! Please review if you liked it or not, because I'm a quivering anxious mess right now!**

… **You wouldn't leave me as a** _ **quivering anxious mess,**_ **would you…? ;w;**

 **...**

 _ **...would you...?**_


	3. No doors(None at all anywhere)

Winter didn't like liveliness. Across the whole domain, its body chained around everything trapped outdoors in rivets of frost. Asphalt shimmered unnaturally and Christmas lights suffocated to shine through the while casings. If unshielded, human skin turned strange and taut, going pale, and red, and blue and black and all manner of bizarre textures within minutes, forcing everyone to go covered, else the season would do it for them with deadly consequences. However, despite the glacial dictatorship and the weather, there was a sort of beauty in this seasonal struggle. Things that'd once gone unseen suddenly became more vivid. Drawings of breath suddenly had actual perceptibility, for example. Frozen water in this case, often had a tendency of forcing light to bounce through its body in iridescent patterns.

Like the purple metal of Zim's Voot, searing through the dismal overcast like a comet before crashing square into the roof of the City Center Mall.

It really was nothing short of a miracle it didn't explode.

" _Rrrgh…"_

Grunting, Zim crawled out from the popped windshield and tumbled onto the rooftop. A gash snaked his temple and a mild ache hugged his shoulder, though despite this, he operated fine and landed feet-first with a squish. Slushy suburban mire crawled over the roof surface and hugged the soles of Zim's boots – regardless of how he tried to scrape it off, the crap wouldn't stop sticking, but he'd manage. Each cuss panged around the lot in a furl of white steam, and faded quickly into the shadow of the big, storming black sky overhead.

Step one accomplished. Kinda.

Well, though the landing could've gone smoother, the Voot wasn't actually in awful condition. The propulsion jets were fine, and though dented, there wasn't much wrong with the body. Despite the fact that it was a practical ice cube, anyway. Zim ran his fingers over the new shell with a frown. Tangle patterns of translucent cold completely wreathed his ship like a big ol' ice-sweater, and the more he inspected, the more Zim came to realize that it was these layers of ice that had cushioned the craft's impact. Thankfully, the engines were functional, so the defrosting was gradually underway, but still, such a sudden bee-free crash proved strange to contemplate. Zim had taken high above the cloud line for stealth purposes, only for the climate to completely, for lack of a better term, _lose its shit_ and bombard him with snow. This was rather uncharacteristic of the normally mild area, and he didn't know what to make of it.

On the way back, to avoid such a fate, he'd have to stay closer to the ground and take the risk of being seen.

Zim decided that he hated winter.

Scowling at the rush of icy wind, he tucked his face into his coat collar. A true menace was the scourge of Irk – poised and fully able to strike intimidation into any soul as only a pouty, 4'6'' child could. His terror only grew after analysis of his suspiciously Minimoose-shaped hat, as well as his pink scarf – not to mention the plump magenta jacket rounding around his waist like a marshmallow, which by itself could inflict enough horror to scare an entire generation of hardened Irken warriors into a full surrender.

Yes. Truly, the stuff of nightmares. Zim was an eldritch abomination beyond words.

But amidst the trouble that'd befallen him recently – between the turmoil in having a very-deceased rival, a new threat on the rise, a crashed ship, and absolutely nothing to watch on TV that didn't repeat the same seven Christmas carols over and over – something else was slowly pushing Zim to be on edge. Now, there'd been some police-humans lingering around the premises that'd Zim easily evaded detection from utilizing the prior-stated brilliant tactic of... Flying really high, and just happening to crash when nobody was looking. But the fact those bright little cars were spotting the area at all gave him cause for mild alarm.

As were the sounds of what could only be a raging human party occurring underfoot.

The City Central Mall loomed in a state of disrepair beyond that of what he recalled from last time. Random Christmas objects were haphazardly thrown over the blocky walls. This included dormant strands of decorations, ripped wreathes, crumbling reindeer statues, soggy Santa plushies, graphitized penises, food wrappers… They were all just littered over the pavement. Several windows were broken, too, with merchandise swiped and shelves clearly toppled over inside. The lights were turned up to eleven, and the interior had the silhouettes of at least three digits worth of people dancing from within its bowels while loud music played.

Curiously, the once bare roof of the mall now held a sunroof, which was broken, a big slab of metal covering the gaping hole that was once a domed window… Upon closer inspection, the metal held…

What were those, anyway?

The Invader cautiously knelt beside it and ran a hand over the inscriptions. They were what looked to be alchemic circles analogous to the ones scattered through the pages of Dib's useless "spell books", crafted hastily with… Were those claw marks?

" _Nyeh…"_

Despite what anyone would've suspected, the Minimoose shaped hat was actually a cleverly-disguised Minimoose. While Zim couldn't see the plushie's small frown, he could feel its body faintly trembling on his head.

"I am unsure, Minimoose… But do not fear!" he reassured his minion, giving it a gentle pat, "Earth is full of disgusting animals, and Zim shall forge this path to smite them all. You just stay glued to his mighty skull and provide the radar, yes?"

It squeaked again, mildly comforted by this. "Nyeh."

As far as other lifeforms went, it was really hard to be cruel to that damn moose…

Puffing out his coat, Zim began to approach the elevator… Except the doors to it opened before he was even within ten feet. A big smile sat, bright and white in the dark.

Zim gagged. He knew that smile…

 _No._

"ZIM?! YOU'RE HERE TOO?! HEY! HEYA, BESTEST BUDDY! IT'S ME!" the boy squealed.

 _How was this possible?_

The dirt child pranced out in his bloated rainbow-striped coat.

 _NO._

His awful touch-stumps gripped Zim's cheeks and yanked them into a smile.

"I'm SO HAAAAAPPPPY to SEE YOU!"

 _NO. NONONO TALLEST WHY_

Zim smacked the hands away. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU REVOLTING-"

The hands folded at Zim's lower spine and crushed him into a sweaty embrace. Zim squeaked in response from the smothering pain.

"You're here for the party TOO?!" Keef chirped, "Man, this is an even better turn-out than the one I tried to make for you! Ohhh, this is perfect…!"

" _What… Are you doing here?!"_ the Invader choked out, trying to push Keef from his frame, "How did you find Zim?!"

Over the year since arriving, Keef had remained a strange constant ever since the Irken's arrival. Even when the other children had initiated the beginnings of that stretching-up-pubescence process, his vocal chords still imitated a chew-toy and his taste in rainbows remained unchanged. His eyes still sparkled and his hair was as much a dumb, boingy spring as ever. In a way, it was almost a cause of relief.

In another, Keef's voice gave him the urge to eat glass, so this sentiment was rather pointless.

"Oh there was a loud noise right above us, buddy!" he gingerly explained, "The big kids said I should make myself useful and get eaten investigating! Hee-hee, but you wouldn't eat ME, Zim~!"

Another crushing hug... Was his squeedilyspooch bleeding...? Had his ribs cracked? Zim couldn't tell. This was _torture_.

"Hey, what made that sound anyway?" asked Keef, glancing to the downed spacecraft, "Hey, is that a space ship-"

Zim cut him off. "Haa do not be ridiculous, fair, pungent human!" he weakly grinned, "It is, eh, a balloon. I had two! But the other exploded. In a glorious balloon explosion. Icicles. Haaa. … _THAT ONE IS MINE AND YOU CANNOT TOUCH IT TURN YOUR GAZE FROM IT NOW OR FACE MY WRATH._ "

Keef watched Zim with the expression of a hawk. For a moment, the alien thought he'd suddenly grown something resembling a cranial organ, but when the boy broke out in another smile that notion died rather quick.

"Was the other for me?!" he cried, "You really ARE the best friend ever! You're just like… Oh… One of those characters in those shows Mathers likes! Yeah! A ' _Tsundere'_! D'ohhh c'mere!"

 _Tsundere? What?_

Another bout of squeezing Zim to death. Fun.

" _What… Is… Going on…?"_ the alien wheezed, _"Down… …beLOW us?"_

Keef was uncomfortably close to Zim's face when he eased the pressure. "You don't know?! Well, when word went out that the scary security guy was gone, EVERYONE had to come to the mall! Free stuff! Now it's been weeks of partying and no one ever leaves!" the child started corralling the alien over to the elevator, "I just had to come try and make friends and have fun, too! It's been three days already, and now that you're here, and we can drink punch and listen to hobos tell stories and NOT hang out on the floors for rejects and throw things at the police when they try to make us leave-"

"Wait, what?!" Zim froze, "Keef-filth, please reiterate these things you have said."

"Huh?" the boy asked, "Yeah, isn't it crazy? There was this scary guy in charge named… I think Slobber Ankle? And he was so scary he never left the building! He's like Miss Bitters, now that I think of it! But big. And a man. And I guess somebody must've made him leave, because some kids caught on no one was home about a week ago and started stealing. Then people stayed behind and started to make this big old mall a happy home!" the boy's smile grew in size somehow, "Isn't it weird? It's like a storybook with a happy ending that we weren't a part of! Wonder what made the guy leave… Wait! Was it you, Zim?!" he squealed in joy, "Were _you_ the _hero?!_ Aw, you must've been the one to fight off the bad guy-"

Zim's teeth flashed in a snarl. "No! I came here in _SEARCH_ of the man who's ankles are slobby!" he hissed, "I must find this man and learn his secrets or else!"

Keef raised a brow. "Huh? Why, Zim?"

Despite how tightly his fists had been clenched, the green menace was able to unfasten them enough to pinch the skin where his nose would've been. He sighed. "Okay, dirt-child. Listen to me _very carefully._ Remember that pathetic boy with a reputation even worse than yours with gravity-defying shlock of hair named… Dib?"

Keef beamed at the mention. "OH! Dib's here too?! Why didn't you say so?! We could've-"

"No, Keef-dung. He's… …Compromised," he surprised himself at how gingerly he worded the death, "And that 'scary guy' might have the cure to his condition. Also, the creature that… Compromised the human in first place is also here. Whom of which I intend to hurt. ...Intimately."

Keef's face dropped the smile and turned blank. Once the information seemed to click, however, it shifted into something resolute. Determined. "Well, Dib's MY best-buddy too!" he said, raising his fists to the air, "We should stick together to help him out!"

"He's NOT my buddy," Zim growled, but Keef had already snatched his wrist and was leading him into the elevator. As the doors approached, though, something struck Zim right in the bases of his 'spooch. Clinging and sickly and nauseous, it filled his whole build with disgust. It was there he realized that if he entered that mobile pod with the human, he'd be forced to spend the rest of the mission with him as a tag along.

Hours. With Keef.

 _Unacceptable._

"Ack, err, Keef?" Zim forced the sweetest tone he could manage without vomiting, "Y'know, Dib can actually wait! Maybe this Slobb-Ankle will return soon, so how about to pass time we play, uh, hidden seeks on the roof? To warm up in case we need to hide at any point of the mission? In everything EXCEPT the balloon?" he suggested, "Yeeess! Look, you can even be 'IT' first! Doesn't that sound… Err, 'fun'?"

The human resumed that bright smile again. "HIDE AND SEEK?! WITH YOU, ZIM?! THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!" immediately, the red-head booked it for the elevator wall. "I'LL COUNT TO ONE MILLION! ONE, TWO, THREE-"

The elevator was already going down to the lobby.

Sighing in relief, Zim pressed deep into the glass wall of it, letting the cool seep into his skull. Already, a migraine was building and he hadn't even spent five minutes on the mission yet. At least the repulsive human was easy to ward off…

Minimoose rubbed gentle circles on his temples with its nubby limbs. "Nyeh," it offered, quietly.

"Of course he'll burn with his kin," he answered, hugging his knees. He was grateful for the comfort, "First thing's first, though, Minimoose… Which floor is the signature on?"

"Nyeh," it answered.

"The basement?" he repeated, getting up and stepping forward to the panel of buttons once the ministrations stopped. After pressing cancel between 12 and 13, he selected the basement as the destination.

The light flickered.

The elevator started going up.

Zim's eyes widened.

 _What?_

The basement's button wasn't lit, but the 66th floor's was. He jabbed the desired button, but it did not respond. He jabbed it six times and got no result still.

Basement button was dormant.

37th floor had just passed.

"Minimoose, screwdriver!" the alien barked, "This transport tube is _ill!"_

With a squeak, the minion reached into Zim's PAK and handed him the tool while its master located the slip of metal over the wires. Taking out the screws and letting the metal fall with a small clang, he was greeted to a surprise.

Nothing was wrong.

Not one wire out of place.

"What th- WHAT IS THIS?!" he demanded.

"Nyeh?"

"No Minimoose, this ISN'T something I'd do for fun! What's going on here?!"

Desperately, he checked again to see if he'd missed anything, but alas the pod was perfectly put together. Why…?

He looked outside. Would he have to break the glass...?

The motion stopped and there was a ding.

66th floor.

Open went the doors, and despite everything he'd encountered on Earth so far, Zim felt his everything under his skin drop in significantly temperature.

Though there was some strained light from somewhere down the hall, no lights were on. The doorman waiting for him couldn't have been older than six, and it seemed like he'd been waiting for some time. Uncomfortably, the alien found a pair big, round eyes brimming with the child-like wonder of a morgue, burning through his skin and bones to someplace deeper into his core. The expression had the sort of aesthetic of being drawn on, and surrounding those eyes was a sea of plastic-like skin. It was oddly smooth and contrasting with the attire that reminded the alien of that Nutcracker from the movie GIR'd been watching earlier. Over all, a sharp contrast to the various cheers, hollers and arguments faintly going on above and below.

There were at least fifty other children just like him.

Standing there. Staring.

"Who're you?!" asked Zim. When he didn't receive an answer, he waved a palm over the boy's unmoving face.

When that did nothing, he jabbed his cheek with his fingers.

"Nyeh?" Minimoose offered after much hesitation, resuming its trembling.

"This… _Is_ strange…" agreed Zim in a hush.

" _Welcome,"_ a taller girl near the back said, as if reading off some invisible cue-cards, _"It is hoped that you enjoy the festivities. Please come in."_

"Ah… Ah-heh," Zim strained a smile, backing away slowly, "Actually my fellow worm-babies, I am afraid this is the wrong floor! I'm just gonna…" he pressed the button to close the door and got no response, "…Go now…"

The following moments were a rush. Zim could feel something formless and cold behind him that shoved his entity out from the elevator and to the tiles of Floor 66 before he could even catch a glimpse. He scattered immediately off the surface and rushed over, but just like that it was gone.

Just a brick wall with nothing on it, and a barricade of kids in the way.

It was like elevator had never existed.

" _Please watch your step,"_ said a darker-skinned lad, _"And enjoy the festivities."_

"WHAT THE-?!"

The children rung around him lifelessly, boring into him with their dead, dead eyes. Zim refused to show his fear, but in spite of this his breathing stayed irregular.

"I-I want answers now! Who are you and what's going on?!"

No answers.

Zim punched the nearest kid in the face. He fell and lay there, unblinking.

Nothing from the crowd.

"You... You guys are WEIRDOS!" he shakily declared, "I'm getting outta here!"

Zim turned, and placed a boot forward in hopes of entering the rest of the new room.

The children didn't move.

He placed another.

The children were mobile as furniture.

Wincing, Zim kept close to himself while maneuvering the gathered kids.

There'd was a slasher piece he'd once seen on the television – at one point the lead character had been locked with a murderer inside a fridge. The fictional-fridge had been expansive, and every direction the character ran, pig corpses had dangled around him, staring lifelessly as danger remained obscured by their forms. If he recalled correctly, the character had gotten their arm removed in there.

For some reason, Zim's head started to feel dizzy. It was like static was coming in. Like some memory he'd forgotten was rising up, similar to bile…

Eyes…

Why...? This didn't make sense for him. His filters kept the trauma-gunk from coming up. Always...! His cardio sped, but he kept steady. What was this memory…? Why did this whole room seem to pulse with some field that made him so sick and fearful...?

Eyes… On him… Couldn't have been a year old…

 _Defects needed fixing…_

His pace sped up.

 _Let them fix you…_

Eyes. _**[INFORMATION REDACTED]**_ eyes, the _**[INFORMATION REDACTED]**_ wing of the hatchery for the _**[INFORMATION REDACTED]**_ smeets

Everything was hammering in him, claustrophobia slamming down his consciousness and the eyes and he felt so small

tools stripping through his _**[INFORMATION REDACTED]**_ softly mouthing _**[INFORMATION REDACTED]**_. It was HIS PAK, they didn't

 _glitch in the PAK_

He was running now.

 _There had to be a way out!_

There were no windows or displays on the whole floor – it was just one big room, with a checker-patterned ground and sloping, rotting walls. No one had entered in ages. Except these kids.

Who stood everywhere.

Staring.

"Y-YOUR FESTIVITIES ARE STUPID!" snapped Zim, rotating as he spoke to try to find at least one that wasn't like the others, "I don't like it here! Or any of you, for that matter! So... _L-Let me out!_ I'll destroy you all! Don't think I _won't! Zim's dangerous, do you hear me?!"_

A child from the far right glanced his way… Zim didn't recognize Poonchy, but to be fair the absolute lack of anything in his eyes was enough to weird anyone out.

" _Why? Is something amiss here?"_ he asked in monotone.

" _Someone here doesn't belong…"_ droned a girl from the left side of the roof.

A boy next to him opened his mouth. _"Doesn't fit anywhere. A defect, a defect…"_

A girl near the center of the room piped up. She stood beside what appeared to be another sunroof with a claw-marked slab over it, below another sunroof with a slab over it. Seemed that pattern went on for a while. Zim remained tense and freaked out, glancing between them all. Something was making him shake. _"He doesn't have a proper home…"_

" _He's far from home…"_

" _Not normal…"_

One kid – clearly wasn't Dib, but still possessed glasses round enough to remind Zim him – spoke right in front of the alien. _"What's he like inside…?"_

" _Is he good?"_

" _So small…"_

" _Defect."_

" _Helpless…"_

" _No home here…"_

" _Not human."_

" _Defect."_

" _Murderer…"_

" _Killed his own…"_

" _Failure."_

" _Defect."_

" _Hated."_

" _Paranoid."_

" _Defect."_

" _Perceptive."_

" _Defect."_

" _Emotional."_

" _Def-"_

That was it. Minimoose was urgently trying to chirp something soothing, but Zim couldn't listen. Instead he screeched, and upon removing his hands from his temples (when had he...?) they seized the child resembling Dib's throat. He began squeezing, crying out some noises as if to compensate for the absolute lack of reaction from his victim.

It felt like plastic.

It squished like plastic.

The girl melted like plastic.

The remains melted like plastic.

It turned to dust, unlike plastic.

He breathed heavily and gauged the rest of the crowd, reaching into his coat for all the weapons he packed beneath to see how violent he'd need to get after killing one of their kin.

No response.

Nothing.

" _That was excessive,"_ said one child.

Zim blinked, breathing still frantic. "STOP STARING AT ME! REACT! _REACT FILTH!_ What… WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU CREATURES?! S-STOP IT!" he demanded.

" _Defect's scared,"_ lifelessly quoted another.

Zim trembled. "NO! I AM NOT ' _DEFECTIVE'_! YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT WORD _MEANS!"_ he drew out two plasma pistols, "NOW STOP THIS GAME AND SHOW ZIM THE EXIT ALREADY! YOU'RE ALL GOING TO EXPLODE HORRIBLY! I MEAN IT! THAT ONE KID HAD AN EASY DEATH COMPARED TO WHAT I HAVE IN STORE FOR EVERY, LAST, LOATHSOME ONE YOU! _LET ME OUT!"_

There was a moment of silence.

Then every single child positioned their arm to the direction of a particular floor tile by the far wall.

Shaking, Zim cautiously followed the direction, guns frantically pointing to every head in the room.

When he reached the tile, he tapped it with his foot. A mechanical noise pierced through, and it fell, revealing a long stairwell under it with the sign "ZOMBIE LAB" flashing in neon along a wall.

Zim hissed and looked over his shoulder at all the children, ready to attack.

The whole room was empty. Piles of dust littered the ground.

It was just him and the long-forgotten memory his PAK was already deleting.

(-)

Minimoose felt Zim beneath its body. It felt each robotic step. It felt him shiver. If it strained its auditory processors, it could hear his vexed mumbles, too.

"… _not… …'m not… how'd they… how'd Zim..."_

Though its master wasn't unknown for succumbing to fear or other such emotions, what happened back there was unusual for the Irken, and it was clear he knew it as well. Zim had heard the phrase 'defective' before, plenty of times, but it wasn't enough to trigger that sort of outburst by itself. Whatever had gone on back there'd certainly done a number, and the little robot wasn't really sure what to do. It was in its code to keep the master in working condition, but did that extend to things as odd as emotions? Who could tell? So it just sat indecisively.

Regardless, recovery was exponential. Over the course of ten minutes, the Invader had gradually gone from (well-contained, all things considered) hyper-ventilating to quiet inhales. Even now, the mumbling wasn't so much distressful as it held bits of familiar, vindictive anger under its soft sound.

"Nyeh…?" the robot offered, careful with its wording.

The Irken stopped on the metal stair. He raised his chin and looked up, to where the toy ridged along his wig.

"…No," he said at last, glowering to his boots, "It's... It's personal... Zim will not speak of it."

" _Nyeh?"_

"…Well… …The story of Zim is great," he explained after much thought, "But there are parts that do not do Zim justice. What is disturbing is how those Earth… Children… …Knew what to say… What HAPPENED back there, anyway?! Where did the elevator go?! What was wrong with it? Who _were_ they?! Why was I so EMOTIONAL?! There are filters in place to handle that _garbage_ , Minimoose! Zim is no easily disturbed screech-beast!"

He hugged his arms, still shaking. Already, the filters were trying to calm him down, but still. Somehow, some fear remained.

"Nyeh."

Zim shook his head. "I do not know how. Not even Dib knows the significance of that horrible phrase... Dib! And he's _manually_ teaching himself Irken! How did some feeble mannequin kid-humans learn the greatest insult of our race, Minimoose?! _How were they used against Zim?!_ I have so many questions and I HATE THEM!"

This was a troubling development, the minion supposed. "Nyeh-eh?"

"Heh? You think it could be another Irken? Like Tak?"

"Nyeh."

"…It is an interesting theory, I'll give you that," he muttered, heading down again, "Heeey, what if it IS Tak? Those children… We don't know what happened to her, Minimoose! Maybe she controlled the elevator through a bug, and for those kids, she's tampering with some sorta modified Vortian liquid suits...? Maybe that goat was a clone derived of a super warrior goat-like race she found out in space that she's cloning here! She must've _compromised_ Dib with one just to _mess with me!"_ a familiar sneer came to Zim's face once the stairs finished, "And maybe she hid something in their EYEBALLS to MAKE ME FEARFUL! Oh, how _low_ she's sunk! Resorting to petty insults, hoping to bring ZIM to his knees?! Psychological warfare of all things! To think it almost worked! What a _harpy_ , Minimoose! Oh, but I-"

Satisfied that the familiar prattle was churning, Minimoose lifted itself from Zim's head and floated in front of him. Hovering, it watched its master for about five seconds.

"E-Eh, what're you doing?" the Irken asked, head cocked in confusion, "Your master is explaining a theory, Minimoose! You are to remain on Zim's head! It is disrespectful to-"

In an adorable answer, the plushie plowed right into the Irken's chest and chirped, hugging him.

Zim stared in shock for a moment.

The next he started another tangent about how this was shameful, un-Invader like behaviour and chastised the moose for even attempting such squishy means of consolation.

After that, Zim feigned a drawn-out resignation... And wrapped his arms around the soft minion, embracing tightly as well.

He didn't let go for at least a minute, shaking softly into the small thing. As robot, Minimoose couldn't truly feel anything for him back, but as long as it could keep him focused and let the filters do their job, it didn't mind. Unconventional means of support were likely to be expected for this mission, and as it knew, Zim was simply defective in nearly every sense of the word.

* * *

 **A/N: This has been edited again.**

 **Well, this chapter went through a fuckton of rewrites. It was gonna be longer, but I decided to save the lab and what's in it for the next update. Originally, Keef wasn't here at all and Zim would've talked to an OC who replaced Slab as head security instead for the exposition purposes Keef wound up filling. She was a super annoying, nameless, narcotic teen who was useless at her job and basically LET everyone in out of apathy. She also used "like" at least twice a sentence, absently ate a fly after it'd had wandered a minute on her eyeball, and was honestly a lot of fun to write... But Zim just walking through the front door being answered by a mannequin kid felt too uncool, and a trope I hate in horror stories is that whenever there's a red-flag a character goes along anyway without trying other options. Like dude, there's a freaky child-thing there WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING INTO THAT ROOM WHEN IT'S CLEARLY A TRAP USE THE BACK ENTRANCE AT LEAST MY GOD ZIM WHY DO I SUCK AT WRITING YOU**

 **So yeah. We got a nightmare elevator and floor 66 instead. Creepy? Forced? Meh? Awesome?** **I might use that OC later... We'll see? Meh. I like Keef and recently read a fic where he was actually a badass alien in disguise out to destroy the Irken Empire, so here he is because he's been on my mind lately. Will that piece of fanon be canon here?! Who knooooooows?!** **(while I was proof-reading this, I saw that as opposed to screaming "HIDE AND SEEK?!" Keef had screamed "HIDE AND SEX?!" instead. My highly-developed taste in humour left me very tempted to leave that in, but sadly it lost.)**

 **That whole thing with the mannequin children was improvised right there. I mean, in the plot outline, they were sprinkled throughout the mall and they rubbed Zim the wrong way from the beginning, but all that was a spur-of-the-pen. I guess what inspired it was this one bit in Lisa the Painful when you first really encounter Joy cult in that shack, but that's another story. We'll get more into the nitty-gritty of why that freaked Zim out some point down the line, but I'm always open to suggestions for writing ol' space bug more in-character. Actual dramatic emotional destruction isn't something I have much reference for from this show, oddly enough, so if it felt forced gimme a ring and I may spruce it appropriately.**

 **Minimoose's consolation has gradually been edited from being just plain-old-fluff, to yet another sign of Zim's empty existence, as it becomes more and more established that it doesn't actually care about Zim's emotional state and just wants him to carry on with what he should be doing, and Zim's too fractured to really care/notice. Aren't I nice to the cast? Haa.**


	4. Spectrum Harvest(Welcome to Farming-Sim)

**A/N:** **Becki, I love you. ;m; I was so upset nobody had commented – it stung so much. And yes, I was referring to Sleeper Agent! I'd forgotten the title (I should sleep more lol). While I do have some issues with it, I think it's a pretty alright ZADR story that, if anything, gave an awesome depiction of a minor character and had some pretty kinky smut in it. Folks, I say check it out if you have time and want some hawtness/pretty good plot building/a super awesome sick villain (however, note that it's rated M for a good reason, kiddies). (BTW Becki, were you referring to how I visualized Zim as in just how I write him, or that paragraph describing his derpy attire? Either's rocking. I'm just curious. :P)**

 **And at Chapter four, we've arrived at where I'd last anticipated Chapter two to end! :D I really overestimated my packing ability, eh? Well, I guess it's not all bad. I don't particularly like this chapter, but I'm sure you're all used to hearing that by now. Whelp. Off to the races we go, kiddies!**

* * *

" _Oh, now he's leaving me, doc! What kinda sick world lets-"_

Click.

" _-I LOVE my mamma! But I still wish-"_

Click.

" _-d it's fifty PERCENT off-"_

Click.

" _-I'm NEVER gonna get to go to the prom like this, Rudolph! I can'-"_

Click.

" _-elcome Truth Seekers, to Mysterious Mysteries of Strange Mystery! Tonight, we've got a true, harrowing case on our hands. A case of sensitivity, trauma, and of deep, deep_ _mystery_ _. As you may have already learned, within the last week, five children have gone missing in a manner similar to the twenty one isolated cases spaced far apart over the last six years, and our sources at the scene suspect two more have been added to the recent count. Here, you can see the attire of what appears to be an adult, and a blue scarf belonging to yet another child. We've beaten the press to this case, and already questions are piling up. What led to this change in the target age demographic? Why did this man's coat have a whoopee cushion in it? Where did this kid's body go? Truth is, WE HAVE NO CLUE! THERE ARE NO LEADS OR WITNESSES OR EVEN ANY TRACKS! IT'S JUST US FREEZING OUT HERE IN CRAPPY, COMPANY-COMISSIONED COATS, WAVING CAMERAS AROUND THESE PUNCTURED CLOTHING ARTICLES, GETTING A BUCK OFF THE ENTERTAINMENT VALUE OF THESE DEAD KIDS! THIS IS AN ENTERTAINMENT NETWORK – DIDN'T THE SUPERVISOR KNOW HOW SENSITIVE AN ISSUE THIS WAS?! IT JUST HAPPENED! PARENTS ARE TRAUMATIZED BECAUSE THEIR KIDS ARE MISSING! WE CAN'T COVER THIS WITH DIGNITY! WHO'S IDEA WAS THIS?! I-"_

Click.

The TV screen emptied.

Gaz was already heading towards the door, baseball-bat prepped and winter coat swathed around her shoulders. Dad would be home tomorrow, and by that point she'd imagined both of them would want an indication as to why Dib's scarf was on TV.

(-)

White hissed out between Zim's teeth. He'd reached it, the base of the abyss.

Stairs were long gone now. Metallic walls directed the Invader deep through the bowels, vents rattling like skin. Absent the tunnel was of natural light, illuminated instead by the high-beams pouring from Minimoose's eyeballs. While Zim's ocular implants gave him advanced vision within the dark, the impairment didn't bode well with him, murk still present where a normal viewpoint would've seen utter blackness. If his eyes were compromised, sensors in his PAK could be utilized to guide his way of course, but these kinda sucked and didn't provide much confidence to the shaken Irken.

He clutched the cold, though decidedly soft automation close to his sternum, apprehensive, eager, and somewhat sick between the two emotions as the doors ahead drew nearer and nearer still. Confrontation was upon him, he could feel it in his bones. One last fight here, then things would return to normal.

…Well, he hoped things would return to normal.

…At the very least, he'd certainly get revenge.

That said, the events of floor 66 still arched along his mind, as was the feeling he was being corralled into yet another trap. Detestable were these cage-like walls – after what'd happened in the elevator, everything in building felt about as trustworthy as Dib's sneer. Those dead faces crawled right under his eyelids, scraping through his vision whenever he blinked. The Irken assured himself it was all a tasteless game, organized by whatever doomed creature was calling the shots(Tak or no), and while this did lessen impact it all held… Part of him seriously wondered why he'd felt so sick back there.

It… It'd been like something had practically slipped into his PAK without notice. There was no evidence, but the feeling was there, similar to an erased pencil line on an otherwise clean paper. A groove in his awareness, that someway, somehow, a pair of those eyes had burst through his retinas, travelled through his skull, down his spine, and into his memories – only stopping within the utter nethermost of the pit where all the bad information was comfortably kept repressed. There, the feeling had lapped up the worst words it could find for its own amusement, and had echoed its discoveries out through the human mouths shrouding him… Through buzzing, soft, grating, FUCKING monotone…

" _Nyeh."_

Zim realized just how tightly he'd been squeezing and eased the pressure on the poor robot. "G-Gyah, apologies Minimoose. I just… this place…" he growled, though with a note of an apologetic tone, "It's messing with Zim… I'm gonna blow it up when I'm done. For retribution's sake! For… GYAH! It's-It's just not right, Minimoose! _None_ of this is!"

Something else crawling into his mind… Zim had heard tales during earlier years, of Meekrob swarms who'd compromised armies upon armies of Irkens through such techniques. Made him feel quite crawly inside at the notion of it happening to him. Confused. Angry. Fearful… Zim wasn't even allowed into the innermost caverns of his mind, what gave some stupid opponents the right?

He forced ease on his nerves before stopping at the doors regardless. Great things, they were. Eight feet tall and built of reinforced steel. Locked, no doubt.

"Nyeh."

He looked down to Minimoose.

"The reading's beyond this point, you say?"

"Nyeh-heh."

Zim managed a slight grin.

One bit of C-4 and a rocketing set of doors later, Zim exited his hiding place in one of the vents, and charged in with a ferocious battle cry.

Only to find no audience waiting.

The green menace lowered his plasma rifle and frowned. He wasn't sure what he'd expected when he entered the lab. Perhaps various cells, jam-packed with the roaring corpses of humans. Fogged up glass, bloody floors. Maybe rows of suspension pods, filled with murky fluid and mutating figures. Dirty medical equipment and soiled operation tables… Maybe the zombies just wandered around, minding their own business while bumbling into things, skins peeling and guts rolling along behind them.

He'd expected the smell of rotten flesh and his promised foe, at least. No such thing.

Mostly familiar darkness wreathed him still – a blinking lightbulb sputtered somewhere in the distance, exposing the simple space every two seconds before dousing again. A graveyard of gurneys and medical equipment cluttered about. No gore littered them. No entrails, no blood. Just… Dust.

Dust everywhere, all over the massive chamber. It almost covered the obvious struggle that'd occurred some time ago.

Mid-walk, his boot intentionally brushed some aside to reveal the floor, like a bride's veil. Scar-like claw marks tore through the tiles like butter. Bullet holes, disturbed plaster, and smashed glass scattered along haphazardly. A glance up exposed the broken pipes dangling from the ceiling, sliced apart, bleeding bits of muddy water across the area. On a wall were several devastated computers smashed apart, and the rows of isolation chambers that stood with their structures cracked, spilling dark fluids across the tiled ground.

No current human experimentations. No zombies. No goat clones. No scientists. Not a soul.

A glance to the left gave him full view of a large security uniform, draped over a gurney. Torn utterly to shreds. From a glance, Zim already knew who's it was…

…But _where_ was Rankle's murderer…?

"Minimoose, you're _certain_ the creature's here?" he asked again. The robot gave a nervous squeak and bobbed up and down in his hands. Zim grimaced, looking frantically everywhere he could. Water dripped. Vents rattled. The one, available computer hummed away…

This sucked…!

"Minimoose, load all the data from the working terminal and gather any substances they have for the raising-the-dead-stuff," Zim unhanded the levitating robot and cocked the rifle, "I _know_ you're here, you stupid Dib killer! FACE ME!"

There. A sound.

The gun whirred, Zim darted his gaze around. Minimoose squeaked nervously from where wires plugged into his underbelly, growing quickly immobile as its eyes flooded with scrolling codes. Zim's confusion passed quickly once he remembered, that due to issues involving GIR's existence, both robots were designed to be totally dormant during data downloads. Zim winced, realizing how completely alone he was for this fight. He needed to be completely on guard, for both their sakes…

The floor shook. A rumbling noise! There it was again!

Breathing turning irregular, the Invader cautiously stepped forward. Where… Where was it coming from?!

He tore his wig off, letting his antenna register the noises more efficiently.

More rumbling…!

It was…

His feet couldn't move.

Why couldn't his feet move.

He snapped his attention to below. The floor directly beneath Zim was bubbling and melting into itself.

"AIIEEEEEE!" he squawked, fighting to free his soles, but no such luck as the mire claimed him. Despite everything, right under him, cement liquefied and began forcing his ankles to plunge on through. Rumbling fazed through his toes and right through his veins, spilling over his senses and any composure he'd held. Zim fought but could not free himself of the substance crawling over his clothes, hyperventilating as he sunk down and down at an exponential pace. Against everything, writhing, he let out a scream for help, but before he knew it his hips had slid through and a cold blackness had completely swallowed his head.

Down he fell, unable to breathe, unable to feel, slipping down the unstable substances rapidly as a rush of vertigo seized him. Blood roared between his temples, his PAK legs useless in the vortex of shifting matter.

Air suddenly skated on past during his decent, and the world filled with red light as he fell to the dirt with a dull thud, covered in gross adhesive.

Wheezing, Zim jumped to his feet(fighting the dizziness that'd claimed his skull. Fuck you, dizziness! This was _ZIM!)_ looking around expectantly while doing his best to shake the soggy cement off like an indignant dog.

This place was… Different, to say the least. Sprawling out right next to the alien was a massive summoning circle radiating from the earth, the sort most try-hard goths would've only dreamed of needling onto their backs. It was bursting with all manner of wonky shapes and incantations, shedding a bright scarlet through their lines, which cast intense shadow over spaces where it couldn't reach. No doubt bathed the entire front of Zim in a lovely, demonic red hue. Judging from the size, it must've been almost half a kilometer in scale and volume, drawn into barren earth with sticks and the like… Something was crude about the lines in the center, though, as if a child had drawn portions of it. This circle rested at the bottom of a great chamber, with great, sloping earthen walls that had bizarre blast marks shrouding them.

Overhead, the mall rested thirty feet atop these walls, barren of any cracks spare a decent-sized hole marking Zim's entrance. The whole building sealed this area from the surface quite effectively otherwise. Around the circle were crumbling bouts of rock sticking out from the ground that looked suspiciously like graves…

What probably was more interesting, however, was the great beast gasping in the center of the circle.

 _Well_ over nine feet in height. Beside it rested a giant, red sack that reminded Zim of Santa (before the liquid Vortian-suit nightmare, anyway). Its flesh was goopy and unnaturally charred in colour, giving the impression of literally melting from its bones. The skull curved down, full of sharp, clearly defined teeth, and a pair of great horns twisted out its crown. Enormous, clawed hands dug into the ground (phasing right through the lines), and a long, jutting line of vertebrae arched up, a tined tail twisting through the air. Trembling were a pair of miss-matched feet – a huge hoof and a crooked set of human toes.

A set of focusing, violet eyes locked on the alien. The voice that left it was deep and snide.

"We-hell… If... If it isn't the littlest Invader!" it somehow wheezed and crooned at once, surprisingly enough, "We meet in person again! I hoped you enjoyed the trip here to get here, as much as I enjoyed your… So very, very _rude_ interruption from last time..."

"What… What ARE you?" asked Zim, rifle readied, "I-I killed you! How are you still alive?! What is this, you disgusting goat?! Did you initiate all this? Why did you compromise the Dib?! Did you kill Slab?! Were _you_ the one who sicked those horrible, plastic offspring abominations on me?! _TELL ZIM THESE THINGS!"_

The thing laughed. "Did... You know, you're the sixth creature this week to refer to me as a goat? No real point in correcting you all by this juncture, I suppose…"

"ANSWER ZIM, YOU REPULSIVE STINKBEAST!"

"Heh, alright space bug. To solve your first and last questions, I am something far greater than either you or that trainwreck, _Dib…"_ he spoke the name like one would a repulsive disease, "…Could ever _dream_ of amounting to. It'll take more than some guns and a cursed stake to get rid of me, I can tell you that much. It was thanks to me, you got to enjoy those little 'festivities' from earlier. Excavating into the souls of others to tally their sins is somewhat of a trade of mine, and credit where it's due, digging right into your _sick_ little core took a fair share of magic. Lot of layers to go through, for such a short-fry… Heh-heh. Lucky for me, intuition saved the day, and my 'puppets' were enough to entice that lovely trauma to surface somewhat. You've got a lot of blood on your hands, space bug. Your society is a fresh breath of air from all these brats I've eaten," it grinned in a fashion that forced that awful sick feeling through Zim again.

The creature continued in an almost purr. "I saw enough. You're not one of those human worms. Hell, you don't even have a family at all. You've come all this way across the stars to drown this world in ash, right? You're a killer of your own kind, a destroyer of just about everything you touch, and burier of any reality that's 'too painful' to face. You can't even feel remorse for most things you break, either. Still, you're constantly swamped by dreams and emotions. ... _Defective's_ the magic word your people use, right? Damn shame you've gone this long without appropriate cilice _…_ Well, if these 'Tallest' guys won't punish you directly, I'll step in for 'em."

The evaluation on Zim's profile did not faze him. It was the mention of his leaders that caused his body to tense up like hardening glass. Antenna tips brushed the back of his neck, their stalks flattened right against his skull.

"H-How did you kn-?!" he started, before the beast cut him off.

"I see everything you humdrum individuals hide in your closets. It's not that hard," it casually commented. The monster's limbs unwound from the earth, and it slowly began roaming the curved edge of the circle with a methodical pace. It was hunched over, and the alien noted what appeared to be what seemed to be a stake lodged in its ribs, skin pulsating around the wound, "You learn about what you need to destroy. I learn about what I need to consume. Your leader figures come up a lot in your core, and that's all there is to that. Obviously, I've never eaten a child from Irk before… But, hey. First time for everything, right?"

Zim gave a sneer at this. Guess the goat really didn't know everything, after all… _"Feh-heh!_ Shows what you know, foolish eyesore. I am no child!" he aimed the weapon, "You are dealing with an elite, filth. A full-fledged adult!"

A great laugh scraped from the beast. "Oh-ho, you're _sure_ of that, are you?" at this, some slimy appendage tapped Zim behind his head, much like one would pet a dog, before vanishing without a trace once the Irken hastily turned. "I'll let you believe what you want then, sprout. Not my body, not my brain, not my problem."

And then the sneer was gone. Something. Something about those words stuck inside Zim's head, clanging again and again behind his retinas. It was like a stack of building blocks, left to wobble upon having a lower component removed. Confusion rolled through him, trying to end itself by summoning some sort of answer as to what was even implied so it could cease, but nothing seemed to come up, leaving it writhe in unwilling liveliness around inside his skull.

"…W-What do you mean by that?" he demanded.

The monster cocked its head. "Heh. Wouldn't an _elite_ like you know?"

" _Stop eluding me!"_ Zim screeched, firing the rifle. The creature's eyes widened... But then the circle lit up, triggering some invisible field ate the weapon fire upon impact, forcing the sizzling pink beam into the nothingness of its wall.

The creature dropped its petrified expression and burst out laughing again. "Well! To answer the next questions in no real order, yes, I finally killed that delusional bozo and all the unfortunate zombies he helped force into existence. Rankle put up a hell of a fight, but as far as I'm concerned, it was a mercy purging. He's been a thorn in my side too long, trying to smite me whenever I tried to leave…" he cursed, "Not like the other humans I-"

"That is NOT the current question! Did you just imply Zim's not an adult?!"

" _I'm ignoring you, kid,_ what's it look like?" snickered the beast. Another appendage-thing swiped itself against the back of the Invader's knees, forcing him to fall on his rear. This time, he could've sworn he saw a swipe of black, but not much else, "You shouldn't interrupt folks who're taller than you while they're talking."

Those eyes flashed a dangerous red, and all around Zim, a mess of black tendrils suddenly rose from the circle lines and ensnared him like a net, digging into his skin to render everything under it useless.

No, seriously. He literally couldn't budge a muscle besides his head. His PAK legs were trapped. The scourge of Irk yelled and tried to thrash, but nothing would give to his struggling.

The thing released a slightly strained hiss. "…Good boy. Aw, don't be upset! I'm just trying to make this place more like home for you! Speaking of, what 'this', is, is your _grave_ , by the way. I hope it's to your taste, kid!"

"I WILL END YOU!" roared the Invader, "LISTEN WELL, BECAUSE YOUR EARS WILL BE THE FIRST TO BE SLICED OFF! I WILL YANK YOUR SPINE OUT OF IT'S PLACE AND FORCE YOU TO EAT IT WHOLE! ZIM WO-!"

A tendril slapped over his lips, effectively gagging him.

"…And _why_ did I rip through your human plaything like tissue paper in a mad dash for his everlasting soul? Well… …That requires some backstory to explain, doesn't it? Too bad it doesn't concern you, space bug. I assure you, though. The reason I've risen again is almost exclusively that boy's sin, and he completely deserved what I was about to do. And furthermore, his life is none of your _business."_

The creature closer went to the edge of the circle, scowling with its back turned to the Irken. "To think. After seven damn years, I finally found the strength to leave this stupid circle for longer than a few hours. Then you two happened. A cursed stake? Bad enough. Plasma shots from space kid? Pfft. That'll never _kill_ , but it doesn't bode well on the old bones, either… Oh well. Dinner's coming up, and I'm about ready to ditch anyway…" he still didn't turn, "Say, bug? You like killing things, right?"

Zim sat immobile in confusion. He'd certainly like to kill the monster sitting thirty feet away right then and there, if possible.

"Heh. Well, remember those slabs of metal all throughout this building on the sunroofs from each floor?"

The tendril still held fast, so Zim just glared in response.

"Guess I could just show you. Think it's time you learn firsthand why I had them made."

Light cackled in the beast's closed palm, and with a breath on its knuckles a glowing ball travelled out the grip. Slowly, it hovered over to the wall, and once there it divided into several flat, oval, portal-like things. Ninety nine of them, Zim's PAK automatically relayed, each focused on a floor of the mall, spare of course the empty 66th. He noticed his Voot and oddly enough no Keef on the roof, and several humans partying in every other image.

Then, the monster raised its arms. Suddenly, those metal slabs started sparking. Some folks didn't notice. Some did. One crazy hobo took this as a sign of Armageddon and leapt from the second story balcony. Some kids tried to use it to light up their sparklers, as they were too uncoordinated to operate proper lighters. Some young adults cheered at the rad lighting. Some skeptics raised their brows, but kept on grinding across the dancefloor anyhow.

Then the screaming started.

Brilliant light flooded these floors, a practical rainbow of pulsating waves flooding the building as all the humans in it started crumbling apart. Bones slipped through bubbling skin and voices warbled unnaturally into otherworldly hollers. Marking they'd existed at all were pools of that damned dust and scattering clothes, and suddenly it hit Zim that the increasing frequency of those colours were the souls being ripped from all the individuals throughout the entire vicinity. Reds. Oranges. Blues. Purples. Greens. Pinks. Blacks. Whites. Yellows. Too many shades in between for the PAK to bother calculating, all slipping into one another and rippling in unwilling union.

Bursting through the hole he'd fallen through, the vortex of colours burst on down, funneling like a cyclone into the summoning circle. The creature laughed and laughed in the cascade of souls, drawing the power into itself. Its spine was still turned to Zim, the silhouetted bones in it slowly creeping upwards in size.

It took Zim a minute to even process that the tendrils weren't holding him anymore. "H-How are you doing all this?!"

"You interrupted the complete removal of Dib Membrane's life," the colour began slipping under the normalizing, black skin of the creature, "And on top of leading a sinful existence yourself, you seek to _resuscitate_ that selfish, misbegotten and unnatural child. And, you tried to blow me up!"

Zim swallowed and brought himself to his feet. His knees were squared and ready to lunge forward at any second. "T-This doesn't add up!" he shouted, "Those traps were on every floor! You must've seen me coming! What stopped you from activating the traps earlier when I was in range, filth?!"

It purred in thought for a moment.

"To be honest…?" cracking. Popping and cracking, the neck dislodged as the head began twisting its chin up. And up. And up, and over until that smile crunched upside-down, sneering at him. "Because I was saving _you_ for last!"

A stab of movement, the thing lunged and Zim's whole torso was squeezed of air. Dangled like a screaming kitten, he was ripped from gravity by the mobile vertebrae exiting the loop that wrapped around him as if it were a ribbon, and found himself dragged closer towards the vibrant vacuum of harvested life, forced to watch the teeth of the creature open wide for a long, delighted cackle.

"N-NRGGH-N-NO!" he squealed, light getting closer. His PAK legs were helpless under this pressure, "RELEASE ME! RELEASE ZIM RIGHT NOW O-OR YOU'LL-!"

"FWEH-HEHEH! I'll what, space bug?!" just to spite Zim, the clasp tightened – the homicidal pipsqueak yelped at the pressure building on his bones. With a turn to accommodate its body to the direction it faced, beast slowly carried him closer, "Do enlighten! What does the 'mighty' Zim have in his arsenal capable of stopping one such as _I?!"_

"YOU'LL SUFFER! YOU'LL SUFFER ZIM'S WRATH! I'LL…" the sparks were getting too close, the snout was getting too close, "I'LL… …I'll…!"

The neck leaned forward. A hush of hot breath fell over his face.

"Finally learn your damn place, _Glitch."_

Zim was yanked right into the light.

It went right into his molecules, serrating everything with intense heat. He felt himself scattering apart despite everything he did, despite all his wriggling and kicking and gasping and screaming _it wouldn't stop_ , he couldn't even hear his own shrieking, _it wouldn't STOP_

He thought he saw something scarlet coming off him but his vision was so blurred he couldn't tell. All he could register was the agony of his body crumbling apart in the grasp of the snickering demon, guffawing away like this was the funniest thing in the whole, goddamn world.

* * *

 **A/N: I always hated lighters as a kid. Did anyone else? I mean, I can operate them alright** _ **now**_ **, but back then, as much as I tried those dang things just wouldn't obey my sweet little thumbs. Man, I'd get those lines in my pads and the skin would hurt and there'd be nothing to show for it. Just awful. Either way, I'm kinda sad I killed Rankle. Part of me did want him to live, but nothing I could think of made much sense. I guess my crack ship between him and Sergeant Hobo was never meant to be... Though I also shipped Rankle and Bill, so I guess they can hook up in crazy-people heaven while Sergeant Hobo can meet up with Sizz-Lorr and form a "Zim is the worst person to ever exist ever" club while kicking ass and making out on the side.**

 **...Yes, I'm aware I have a problem.**

 **...Regardless, I did it. The villain's properly introduced! *lame streamers* Hope its intimidating and shit... Now, it's been quickly brought to my attention that it seems like a game-breakingly super powerful motherfucker here that'd put most juvenile Sonic fancharacters to shame, but trust me; there's a good reason why it'd _seem_ that way by this juncture.**

 **...**

 ***Sigh* I'm gonna get chilly reception, aren't I? Darn it. Exit's over there, I guess. 3: Hope you liked everything up to this point. Byeeeeeeee...**

… **And uh, yeah. Cliff-hangers.**

… **Well, in the words of Super Mario,** _ **"See you next time! :D"**_


	5. Broken Pencils(Words in Clam shells)

**A/N: AND I THOUGHT CHAPTER THREE WAS BAD. THESE WERE THE WORST. GODDAMN. THINGS-**

 **SO MANY TRIES IN VAIN ATTEMPT TO KEEP CHAPTERS 5 &6 NOT DISAPPOINTING AND NOT RAMBLING NOTHINGNESS.**

 **SO MANY REWRITES.**

 **FUCK ME INTO A PILLAR OF OVERWORKED, UNDER-RESTED MASOCHISTIC AGONIZED CUM BECAUSE I HATED WRITING THIS CHRIST ALMIGHTY FUCKING SHIT I HAD TO BALANCE IT WITH MOUNTAINS OF SCHOOLWORK GAZ IS HARD TO WRITE WELL TOO FUCK, FUCK FUUUUUCK**

 **In other words, please enjoy, my plucky readers. 83 After this, I think I will go enjoy the first full sleep-cycle I've had in the entire month…**

 **We're getting some new faces in the review's section! :3 Welcome aboard, new readers!**

 **I decided I didn't like my Keef design in chapter 3, so he's back to being a total half-pint. Still one with a shitty coat, though, heh. …Heh… …Well, in the words of** _ **best-character**_ **Dib;** _ **"Sorry, everyone!"**_ **because who doesn't love sudden changes from nowhere, ammiright? Right. 'Course I'm right, you all love me. Also I decided to change the title of Chapter 4 from Blind Alley to Spectrum Harvest, in reference to Dark Harvest for reasons I figure are pretty obvious. :D**

 **In retrospect, I guess you can read this chapter as having one-sided GaGR undertones…? Head's up…? I dunno. I think it's canon GIR has a little crush on Gaz, so I don't think it really matters. This chapter didn't want me to write it, but fuck. I'm sleep-deprived and emotionally unbalanced and here you all go. At least I've gotten through this and can work on the cooler shit that comes later. …I'm having a bad time right now. ;^;**

… **Well, enough chatter. To the plot!**

* * *

 _I am Zim I am Zim I am Zim I am_

The meaning of this mantra was crumbling.

Air broke in his throat. It'd fracture within the center and try to explode out the cocooning flesh, but walls held it all in.

All his words tumbled into one another up and down his larynx. Jumbled. Merged. Writhing and mad and swallowed between chin and breastbone like locusts.

Each of the countless bricks slicing through his brain spaced aspects of himself further and further apart, marooning even these trapped words from their meanings. Similar to insects with their wings plucked off, and children with their wonder-filled eyes tugged from their sockets, he was recreated. The new him was one built lost, and left to perish within a lightless void, empty of purpose and phenomenon as electricity tore him anew. As his very soul, mined from his pores.

Thought was the first to be disabled. Directives slammed into one another within his PAK, codes interlacing and hurtling off in the mad directions. He was suspended in the tide, squished under functions that'd twisted into things far more monstrous than before. Things beyond his comprehension. Things that made sure he couldn't comprehend anymore. The Irken machine – proud, mechanical, and in the end a weapon. Wires wreathed around common sense and anything resembling decency was lost in a rush to survive. In a rush to conform. It knew better how to make the pain stop, it'd been preprogrammed with the information. Suppress _. Stay._ BITE! _Lunge! SIT!_

Everything was falling away. The pain was dulling, so was the world, and so was Zim.

And in this swathing haze, of electricity tearing him apart and atoms falling away from each other, the squeezing sensation around his bones almost felt pleasant…

…Like the hug of a dear, trustworthy friend…

 _Zim's Base, 3:42 AM  
One hour before civilian harvest._

The Computer wasn't sure what to expect when the door to the home had been kicked down. Part of him wondered why the Master would've returned after pretty much just departing, but immediate scans proved this assumption false. For starters, this wasn't an encoded Irken at all. This was a human girl.

This child's mouth was downcast, and her hair curved oddly around her head. It was a peculiar magenta, angular, with simple toque cupping the crown. A bomber jacket wreathed her in black, accompanied by similarly shaded jeans, a pair of lace-up combat boots and a clenched pair of fists. A skull spread along the hat's side, and in her hands rested an experienced, nail-ridden baseball bat.

A search in his databanks brought up the brief profile of Gazlene Membrane – the words "Dib's sister" and "scary" were immediately printed in bright bold, along with the words "detestable" and _"stay away"._ GIR, surprisingly, also had a side report filed under her in his databanks, probably the only document the robot had ever done in its life, which had pasta noodles and glitter smearing it quite officially. The only legible word down was _gelato_. Naturally the Computer was at a bit of a loss at how to handle the situation of a 4''8, silhouetted child occupying the doorframe, but preprogrammed Irken law ordered him to at least try.

" **UH… HI?"** he asked with some hesitation, **"CAN I… HELP YOU?"**

AIs were not encoded with any need for faith. They were aware of their disposable nature and were built to accept that they'd perish someday.

But then this "Gaz" creature opened her eyes.

Nothing short of absolute death rolled about in those tawny irises. An inferno of perfectly bred hatred and malice, all engineered deliberately to strike fear within any life form. It was like the energy in his circuits fluctuated – trying to escape the harrowing scrutiny travelling his walls. Somewhere, some measly, defective byte roaming through his artificial consciousness prayed to non-existent cyber deity for safety. Safety that he'd survive this happenstance, and go the rest of his life without meeting that glare again.

He deleted this byte immediately, of course. But it was troubling that she'd summoned it in the first place.

…Oh Irk. Why him? Was scrolling through the mazes of boring information within Membrane Science's databanks in pursuit of the absolute-impossible-stupid that was 'necromancy' – which had led him through several dumb ads until he'd rather accidentally found encrypted reports within the city mall, which were frustrating to decode by themselves – not enough? How about having to talk to his master for over five minutes? Not to mention that once that conversation was over, he'd had to finish sealing a human parasite back together, and provide a portion of his power to keeping that parasite from decaying any further. And now the _brood_ of said human parasite had showed up like the entropic grim reaper itself…? …Why was Computer's life so awful? Nobody knew what it was like to be him. Nobody.

Though she'd returned to squinting, purple-haired scary girl from hell still hadn't answered, either. Nothing unsettling about that, of course...

"… **UM,"** his speakers started again, **"YOU'RE NOT RESPON-"**

"Where is Dib," her voice crawled through the house.

Silence.

Then GIR broke out from the TV.

Squealing and covered with the innards of their primitive kin, the dog-suit-donned SIR zoomed right over to the stranger and held her leg in a choke grip.

"DID'JA SEEEEE MY BIG ENTRANCE!? I'M GONNA GO TO TH' OLYMPICS THIS YEAR! BUST OUTTA ALL THE TEE-VEES. YOU COMIN' TOO, RIGHT?!" he piped up, looking to her with joy, "You and me's gonna fly all day and play with other kids and-!"

Gaz kicked GIR to the other side of the room.

" _Don't touch me,"_ she hissed, "Dib's. Missing _._ His camera, _and a busted car covered in his blood outside are outside._ I don't know what you guys did with my brother, but Dad's gonna be home soon, and I'm _not_ going to spend two hours with him rushing around the city looking for his stupid head when Zim's probably experimenting on it right now. You have him, right? …Actually, scratch that. I _KNOW_ you have him. Tell me where Zim put him right _now_ , or I'll send you both to _android hell."_

GIR gave a wide grin, ignoring the fact his arm was sparking on the ground beside him. The threat apparently held no power over the criminally insane. "Aw, Dib? He's not doin' good. He's sleeping real snug like a bug in his own bloated jelly-dermis down th' stairs."

Gaz cracked an eye open. "…What?"

"He and that metal pony became beeeeest friends forever!" continued GIR, getting up to approach the sparking limb, "A big goat-thingy wanted to get 'em married so he whipped it at his guts. Pony was mad Dib didn't have a wedding ring, though, so it crushed all his insides and Zim was mad Dib was cheatin' on both of 'em with _**DEATH**_ , so now he's going off to kill the goat pastor and get Dib's soul back. It's all at the mall!"

" **HE'S…** _ **KIND**_ **OF RIGHT IN A TWISTED WAY?"** hesitantly affirmed the Computer, who had summoned some cables from the ceiling to grasp and repair the SIR before he could devour his fallen appendage, **"ALTHOUGH, I SHOULD POINT OUT THAT A CAR HOLDS NO REAL RELATIONSHIP TO EQUINE LIFEFORMS, UNLESS ONE IS DISCUSSING THEIR REPLACEMENT AS HUMANITY'S PRIMARY MODE OF TRANSPORTATION. ALSO, CALLING THE PERPETRATOR A GOAT IS SOMEWHAT RASH, AS IT WAS BIPEDAL IN NATURE AND WELL EXCEEDING NORMAL HUMAN HEIGHT, DESPITE ITS SIMILARITIES. …OH. AND** **YOUR BROOD'S STILL IN THE FRESH STAGE, NOT THE BLOAT. HE SHOULDN'T DECOMPOSE ANYMORE EITHER, AS HIS CORPSE IS IN STASIS RIGHT NOW."**

Gaz's hands unfastened. As though her palms and throat were connected by a seesaw, the child's throat squeezed around her current inhale instead.

"What…" a small pause and normal delivery followed, _"What_ do you mean?"

Her voice was curiously lacking hostility in this simple question. It was almost casual, but there was something lurking under it that the interface couldn't decipher. Curiously, the human's eyes were wide open again, but…

The Computer re-ran the data from earlier, noting massive inconsistencies. …How odd.

Where'd all that scariness go? All that crafted malevolence wasn't apparent now. They were just… Eyes. Brown human eyes. Ones that just kept subtly growing in width and filling with something dry and desolate.

"… **DIB MEMBRANE IS VERY DEAD. HE WAS CRUSHED BY THAT CAR OUTSIDE AND LOST VITAL SIGNS BEFORE BEING BROUGHT INSIDE,"** the AI slowly explained, **"…YOU'RE… NOT UPSET BY THIS, ARE YOU? ZIM IS GOING TO GET REVENGE ON HIS BEHALF AND TO RESSURECT HIM IF THAT MAKES YOU FEEL ANY BETTER."**

It didn't seem like this made her 'feel better'. If anything, it seemed to the Computer's scanners like she felt worse.

For an oddly long time, Gaz stood quite still. Unlike GIR, who whined away at pain of having his arm reattached, she just didn't budge. The Computer, of course, was just a second hand source and had GIR taking most of its attention, but it could detect her body language. And something definitely seemed to tense inside her. Something that forced her ribs to clench deeper in, and her limbs to go slack. Something that caused her skin to pale and her eyes to widen. Like a slew of snares going off under her skin, corralling everything under her black attire to choke in on itself. She just stared head on, into some patch of the wall, where something horrible was unfolding only she could comprehend.

In a way, it was unnerving how plainly the following words left her.

"He's dead."

The Computer carefully lowered the SIR to the floor (who wailed away on the inability to consume his own arm) and addressed the foreign body. **"CORRECT."**

"My brother DIED here. Right on your doorstep. And you didn't stop it," she spoke lowly, "And now, Zim… _ZIM_ of all people's gonna try and bring him back like some Frankenstein rip-off."

" **YES. WELL…"** the Computer said, **"FRANKENSTEIN WOULD NOT BE ACCURATE. HIS CURRENT STRATEGY SEEMS TO BE MODIFIED ZOMBIFICATION LIKE YOU HUMANS HAVE IN YOUR MALL."**

"Wait. We have zombies in the mall?" she suddenly parroted, disbelief grasping her.

" **H-HEY, DON'T ASK ME. I'M AN OUTDATED IRKEN AI, NOT AN EARTHENOID CIVILIAN…"**

She considered this for a minute, looking to one boot and then the other. The Computer detected a spike in her emotional levels, something of great repressed anger and… Fear? ...No, couldn't be.

"…Maybe…" she muttered to no one in particular. Her expression went back to a poker face, and then she was heading out the door. The Computer wasn't sure what she meant, and wasn't sure if he liked the tone.

" **UH, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?"**

"I have to see this," she said, simply. She ruffled her jacket down and started down the walkway, "Zim CAN'T mess this up…"

"WAAAAAIIIITTTTTT PRETTY LADY!" GIR cried, running over with what appeared to be a big, full, smiley-faced sack of… Stuff, "It's dangerous to go alone! Take 'dis!"

The bag opened, and if Gaz's expression to go by, she'd never seen as many grenades or miniature pistols gathered in one place at once in real life before.

"…Thanks?" she offered, kneeling to pack several under her bomber jacket. GIR just rolled through the weapon pile like it was made of pillows.

"HAPPY JINGLE DAY!" he cheered, throwing a bunch in his head. "NOW LET'S GO PLAY COW-JUMPING LIKE IN DA BOOKS!"

"Wha-"

Gaz didn't have any time to react. The SIR had grabbed her by the combat boots and whipped her into the air to spin for a moment. Right before she landed, his feet exploded in lines of flame, snaring his nubby arms around her waist and propelling the both of them out the door, down the street and through the sky. Down the whole block, their shrieking rung out, before fading into obscurity within the dark as they got further and further away.

All the while, the Computer sighed. Finally, peace.

(-)

GIR sang songs all through the flight while the girl dangled in his arms. She'd kicked and yelled at first, but despite her struggling and the frigid downpour, the robot was surprisingly dead-set on his course to the local mall, and soon enough she'd calmed down.

Well, at least on the surface.

It probably came as no surprise, but Gaz was actually quite furious deep inside.

The youngest Membrane felt the sky rip past and all the snow bellowing down on their bodies. It looked even worse in the clouds above, but thankfully Zim's dumb robot kept close to the rooftops and kept from touching anywhere sensitive. As the towers of concrete sped past underfoot, the girl half-listened to the storm of GIR's words while she contemplated what'd become of her world.

It was no secret that Gazlene appreciated routine. Her shell was well-crafted, and her limits didn't take kindly to any sort of pushing. New things – especially _bad_ new things – threatened her patience like a match to the very substance she was named after. Unlike the boys of her home, her mind didn't devour books. It didn't seek information to chew. It didn't look for some new breakthrough, nor did it seek attention from the rest of society. It just crafted a thought pattern every once and a while, dripped with cynicism, and absorbed pixels. At times it busied itself with things like schoolwork, but it was usually found looking through more fictional landscapes to line the walls of its shell with. Drinking the facts she learned through mild experiences, sitting with her demons within the dark for hours on end uninterrupted, ingesting carbohydrates like no tomorrow while fuming internally about the world. Escaping to some better place inside her walls.

So unlike her brother.

Dib.

Now, _pure hate_ was an admittedly poor word choice for something as… Complicated, as the sibling's relationship. She _did_ hate Dib. She hated his voice, and how it broke through her dreams like a retarded toddler through a puddle. She hated the way he pushed his views on everyone and refused to listen to reason. She hated that he put himself in harm's way to appease the blithering masses, and how he expected sympathy for his inability to learn that this only brought scorn. She hated how he could rush out of bed every morning and screech about his passions for Earth all the way to school while she tried to catch extra sleep. Hated how he'd senselessly poke and peel at every brick she'd stacked without ever stopping to notice how livid this made her. For this? Hate. _Hate_.

He'd finally swallowed the truth of her sentiment along with the Shadow Hog's shit last year. By this point, she was certain, he hated her too. At best, these days, she'd describe their relationship as two complacent fish in their father's tank. Swimming in their respective corners, ignorant to the other's worlds, much unlike their formative years.

And yet.

And yet despite all this, every now and then, there'd be a cartoon on television. And their commentary would quite funny when put together. Sometimes there'd be a song on the radio she'd tap her feet to, and across the house, if she strained, she could hear him tapping along too. At times Dib would earnestly say something funny or thoughtful. And sometimes he held that sentiment for things she said.

These were very rare occasions. But it was in them that the complications set in.

...All this was striking far too close to home for her liking. Funny, how a simple, borderline laughable event could tear everything you had out right out of you like a worthless dandelion, wasn't it?

…What was that stage of grief called, where you felt desolate of strong emotion, knew and consciously accepted the person had gone, but still expected to see them when you went home…?

Would she just have to do that with two people, now…?

…Didn't matter.

Not a bit.

Gaz hated Dib, but _risking_ to bring him back as a supposedly rapid, flesh eating abomination? Mindlessly devouring flesh and mindlessly decomposing in on himself in a hell without release?

To be honest, aside from taking obligatory revenge, she wasn't really sure what she'd let Zim do.

(-)

Shooting over a mess of police cars (look at the stupid fucking officers, ignoring the clearly flailing human silhouette to make wishes), Zim's robot sputtered his rockets and sent them both tumbling across the lot.

"HANG ON!" he chirped upon letting her go.

Yeah. That was the logic she had to deal with. Well, wind stabbed through her and down the girl went.

She cursed while her skeleton bumped and jutted along the snowbanks without any grace. Flakes caught in her lashes and spread white patches along her vision, and away she rolled before tumbling right through the front doors of the ruined mall with a disgraceful series of _thuds_. She spat out snow and rubbed her sore shoulders, but the child was never one to wine, so up she shakily stood.

GIR crashed into the back of her skull and knocked them both over again.

The gamer groaned as those metal noodle-arms fastened around her waist again. Copper-tasting fluid spotted the ridge of her cheek from where it'd impacted with the smooth floor, smothered with trash as it reflected obnoxiously loud, thudding music that bounced everywhere.

 _Knock-knock, Gaz. It's anger. The grandest emotion of all. It's gonna completely murder everyone in enough strikes. Strike two._

"Please put all left over peanuts in mah head," chirped the SIR, who (with surprising care) maneuvered himself to prop her up into a sitting position.

Dazed and growling, Gaz pushed GIR aside and looked to find no less than forty people standing around her in varying degrees of intoxication within the (thoroughly trashed) lobby. Staggering, hollering, and mad with stupidity, they plunged their feet down in tune with the beat. The mall's interior looked even worse than the outside. Stores were virtually pissed on, various vending sectors had their gates torn down, filled with variously-sized, filthy people roaming about in glaring neon lighting. They were everywhere, pushing, tripping, walking. Some waved hello, but most resumed grinding and chanting about anarchy and being 'born again partiers' and such nonsense.

Strangely enough, the plaza's sunroof had been destroyed, too, left with a slab of metal that rested over it instead. A fraction of the girl - the tiny piece that despite everything still continued to beat - briefly considered that the managers _finally_ caught on that layering three digits worth of glass over each other under direct sunlight was a stupid plan. …But, intuition told her this probably wasn't the case.

After all, embedded into the steel were what looked to be alchemic circles analogous to the ones scattered through the pages of Dib's "spell books", crafted in scratches. When were _those_ ever trendy?

Aimlessly, she maneuvered the bodies with a tottering GIR at her side. Where the hell would she even begin to look for the supposed zombie area …? People shoved on past, herds of them. Where was Zim? How would she even begin to find him in this mess…?!

"Where we goin'?" asked the robot, now of all times over the obnoxious club theme, "Wanna stop for gondola tacos? They're meat boats you can eat with a mustache!"

She growled as the pain within her skull swelled, wondering why she hadn't totally destroyed the faulty gizmo yet. "Look," she hissed, "I'm trying to find something like a staff member to give me information, and you've already caused me a headache, so why don't you just-"

"Like dat lady?" GIR pointed to a woman lounging at a bench by a 'you are here' sign.

The female's hair was dyed pink and her face held an army of bloated red bumps. What was cause for interest, however, was the head security uniform draped over her figure. Now, clearly, Slab's uniform wouldn't have fitted her slim physique in the least, but anybody could've pointed out that it was the same model – just custom-tailored. And as a frequent customer, this was raising all kinds of questions for the gamer. Gaz glanced to GIR, who beamed up at her, and before she could provide any instructions he zipped his lips shut as if to say he'd remain silent throughout the whole talk.

Huh.

 _Anger… Decreasing? …Strike one, now?_

Okay, so maybe she wouldn't utterly obliterate Zim's little minion. Yet. She acknowledged the robot with a small nod and an awkward head-pat(GIR tried to cheer in response with his mouth clamped shut… Which was honestly outrageously precious, stupid positive emotions), and afterwards approached the staff member casually.

"Yo, like, welcome to the party, sweetie!" sung the female upon noting her presence, "We got…! Stuff…! HEEERRRRREEEE!" she raised her arms over extra-enthusiastically, "You'll like, have a super-special GOOD time here! Like, all these guys!"

Her voice was virtually a droning, effeminate buzz saw – forever tearing through the atmosphere and forever serrating the gamer's patience. Gaz struggled to keep her fists still. She didn't have time for this, dammit...

"Look, do you know where your supervisor is?" the girl asked through grit teeth.

The guard smiled. "Oh, DO I?! Heh, of course I do, silly-billy! Our supervisor, Mr. Downs, is a swell guy - a GREAT guy! …He totally died of overdose two days ago," she explained, "Like, when he found out he couldn't stop the party and that HIS supervisors were coming to check on us soon… Boosh. Awesome drugs. Took too many. It was sick. We took pictures! …Yeah, that was in poor taste, wasn't it? Aw well, I'm too stoned to care about anything right now. I'll probably feel like, totally inhuman later…"

 _Pfft. Inhuman. Try feeling like that since birth, bitch_. …Well, wasn't this just great?

"Just… What HAPPENED here?" the youngest Membrane asked, gesturing to the chaos, "Wasn't the old security chief an ex-military who arrested people for sticking gum under tables? How'd he let a mess like _this_ happen?"

The guard raised a studded eyebrow, still jittering excitedly where she sat. "Huh? You, like, seriously don't know…? Everybody knows!" she leaned in a little, "We-hell… I'm not supposed to, like, tell anybody the juicy details, but I'm high as all get out, and you're a cutie. See sweetie, over the last couple months, like, y'know golden boy Rankle? Old Security head? Took the job way too seriously? …He'd been _really_ slacking at his job, so he got laid off~! Freaky, right?"

 _Rankle?_ Gaz had to take a step back at that. She'd heard plenty of stories about the lead officer – after all, how couldn't anyone (spare perhaps Dib, who quite disliked the mall and only entered when absolutely necessary. Usually without telling anybody, but then again, she usually wasn't listening to anything he ever said, so perhaps she was a bad judge) _not_ know about him? Wasn't this the guy who sold his own house to endorse the Mall with extra funding, who never left the building ever, who slept _standing_ with _both eyes open_ while _saluting in front of the camera feeds?_ How could someone like that be fired for _slacking?_

"What do you mean by THAT?" she asked, "Didn't he live and breathe this place?"

"That's totally what we thought, too!" the guard glanced shyly to the side, "Okay, so, like, the _official_ story is, he'd only been fired for acting weird, like, a few weeks ago. But he was getting REALLY weird _months_ before even that. He kept going down to the tunnels near the zombie labs we were commissioned to work on by those weirdos at… Hah, I can't remember their names. But they're weird, weird government guys, y'know? I'm not supposed to like, know about 'em, but I, like, love hacking stuff… They still never found out it was me… Heh," she giggled, as though she hadn't just admitted to committing a felony, "…And when he wasn't down there, he was in his office, but he wouldn't come out for days! We don't know what he was looking for, but some trespassers actually slipped past him because they weren't concerning enough! Rankle said that! Can you believe it?! He just kept... Looking."

"Looking for what?"

"...Ooo, I'm not supposed to tell ya, but... ...For this weird monster thing," hushed the guard, "Said it was this… Shadow who haunted him. Had to stop her or something. I don't know. Crazy, right...? We were trying to get him on anti-psychotics, and a few weeks ago, when the supervisor was supposed to mail in the results for that month of testing, everything down there was gone, including all the zombies, AND shortly after, so was Rankle! Just their clothes, claw marks, bullet shells, and all this crazy dust were left. Spooky, right? And adding to that, there're all these weird circles scratched in all over the place. Safety says rats did it, but don't they look weird? Plus, the cameras keep getting weird even when we replace them, and none of the feeds catch anything but… Oh, man, I can't even describe it. It's wicked weird red stuff, like, right?"

Before Gaz could add anything onto this the guard (Gaz decided to call her Pinky) kept talking.

"Also, this PAR-TAY, was totally my move," she cheered, "See, the mall has like everything anyone could eeeeeeever waaaant! So, like, one like night some kids started coming in and wouldn't listen when I like, said 'don't come in'! – because my attendance, I took Rankle's job, y'see – and then, like, those little delightful _FUCKS_ went and told their parents coming in here was easy and like no one wants to pay for stuff so… Part-tay-central mall totally happened, and now we have like fifty hundred families who won't ever leeeaave!" she stared off to nothing for a minute. And another. She started humming. Then she began speaking again. "Oh yeah, I have to tell you… That we're like, clooooosed, so come back, like, tomorroooow, or like whatever! …Sorry, I gotta say that or I'll lose my job…"

Gaz shook her head. "Look, earlier, that information was actually kind of interesting. Do you know where the labs actually are?" she questioned, "And did you see a green kid come through? I think he's gonna try stealing your zombie formula. Also, that monster thing's probably real and it killed my brother. Just to let you know."

"Aww, they're even letting LITTLE dudes take drugs now? Cute! Learn the magic early, girl…! …Oh. Oh, and yeah," Pinky nodded, "There's like totally a whole bunch of secret passageways to the laaab... Off the top of my head, you could try Floor 66, which isn't too bad, but the one in the Security office is probably the fastest way down, since it's got an elevator straight to the _actual_ lab. Oh, and if you graffiti guy's junk the screens, don't tell my boss it was me, okay? ...And I didn't see a green kid. Sorry. And sorry about your brother, too. Who was he again?"

"It's not important," the girl had enough information. She didn't want to muse deeply over Dib's passing juuust quite yet... "Thanks," the macabre kid muttered, surprised the encounter had gone alright.

GIR watched her come over from where he'd been standing silent ten feet away, and flapped his black arms in anticipation. Gaz was part-way tempted to decrease her speed, just to see how long the machine could go and how fast his arms could fly, but she thought better of it.

Instead, she poked his forehead and nodded to move forward. "C'mon, robot. I got us a lead."

Before she could head out, however, the guard spoke up.

"Oh, and little kid?" she called, an uncomfortable look on her face, "Careful. It's reeeaaaally… _Reeeaaaally_ creepy in there."

* * *

 **A/N:** **THIS CHAPTER WAS SO FUCKING BORING COMPARED TO THE LAST AND I'M SORRY BUT I NEEDED TO ADD GAZ INTO THE MIX AND IT WAS HAAAARD TO KEEP THIS INTERESTING. 8-8 THANKS FOR READING.**


	6. Pierrot's Broken Verse(Conspiracies Eve)

**A/N:** **Oh, FBI-Warning of Doom... I've had to watch you twelve times over the course of writing this fic. OvO**

 **I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a good episode, better that than say, Taster of Pork or Bologna (latter's gross and fuck the former PLUS its idiot plot Jhonen how do you fail at writing your own goddamn episode). I just think it's kinda sad that I've watched to the point that I've memorized Slab Rankle's serial number when I can't remember my own Granny's phone number.**

 **Warning: potential OOC for Slab. I tried. I really did. ;-; Most of this is a journal, just an FYI.**

* * *

 _Swivvvfff_

 _Swivvvfff_

 _Swivvvfff_

All the way up, Gaz's sleeves brushed her bomber jacket's body.

Quite a few stairs to climb.

If it wasn't obvious, Slab Rankle was a far, far cry from a reasonable man. If an automated defense system within the coin-operated rides didn't tip a normal person off, then maybe the lazer grid lining the stairway to his office would. Oh, and by lazer grid, don't assume that meant a bunch of those red lines from spy-flicks one had to maneuver with a can of spray-paint and yoga maneuvers – these were full-on 'disintegrate your flesh' if one even poked a toe in without proper clearance, WHILE triggering an alarm, as if the physical agony alone wasn't enough. Nope - blaring noise to pinch around your head like a thorny crown, _while_ your flesh crumbled, was required to even _begin_ atonement for defying the officer's will.

He was kind of a jerk in that aspect, really.

Luckily someone had puked on system's generator. So, Gaz and GIR had no problem entering the slanting, syrup-brown walls to his office.

Now in the nuclear explosion of music on the main floor, Gaz hadn't really noticed that the mock dog's bizarre silence the whole journey up. With no voices bogging her brain down, this fact came to her attention. As such, she paused at the second-last stair and spared him a glance, to find his green form marching in place, waiting for her to continue.

"I thought you were supposed to be a chatterbox," she grunted, suspiciously cocking her head.

GIR muffled something and gestured to his mouth, pretending to tug an invisible zipper, and then pointed to her.

Huh.

...Was he waiting for her to unfasten it?

…How cute.

He was doomed forever, then.

"Sucks to be you. That thing's staying there forever, if it's up to me," she explained, "I hate noises." _Had enough for today, thank you._

GIR hummed a little pout, but bounced after her anyhow. Gaz didn't have time to be humoured by his antics. She had to find Zim, the perpetrator, and access what was coming asap...

The door to the security office soon loomed over the girl. Imposing and grey, it was clearly meant to accommodate for much more brutish folk, and not lean little punks with bad attitudes. The door was unlocked – probably had Pinky to thank for that, supposed the gamer, which let out an odd melting plastic scent from inside. Standing in its shadow a moment, Gaz figured she didn't have to bother really bracing herself for what was inside the room, and so she strode right along in.

Part of her wished she hadn't.

Now, Gaz didn't feel sick easily. And she still didn't count this as "sick feeling". ...But whatever it was, it was cutting it really damn close.

Scratch marks plowed right through the whole, grey floor and all the control consoles lining them. Bullets shells rolled under her soles and several monitors were smashed. And as for the ones that were intact?

When one pictured faulty camera feeds, they might've expected vacant screens or static, dancing lines. Maybe those rainbow streaked patterns and a high, droning pitch.

Utterly and entirely not the case here. In all her experience with screens, Gaz hadn't really seen anything like this. Countless displays stretched to the ceiling. And not one of them lacking damage didn't glow red.

It wasn't _just_ that they were red - they weren't even constant with the colour. It was like the red scribbled itself in, seizuring hysterically down the plastic frames, as though each string was trying to burst out from the technological cage. Something about them grabbed at the tendons of all things, making them crawl and interweave within each other like worms beneath their pores in some instinctual _empathy_. If Gaz focused her vision, she could just make out words lingering inside the convulsive webs. There was a letter "s" under one streak, and there was a letter "m" and a letter "r", with a little "n" flowering between the paths brushed up to her lenses… "t", "e", "o"... ..."y" "o" "u" "m" "o" "n" "s"-

GIR tugged her sleeve.

She snapped out of this little trance quickly, shaking her head and arms furiously. NOW she felt sick.

 _What the hell was that?!_

Doing her best to have her eyes avoid the screens, in the corner of the room erected a pod-like transport – obviously the elevator Pinky'd mentioned earlier, which was mostly a silver metal – with a black notebook sprawled in front of it. The machine was dented and there were gouge marks on the roof, but it still seemed operational regardless. Its panels were still glowing around it and what have you...

Either way, Gaz was all too eager to leave this disturbing red room. So much so that for once, GIR's dopey demeanor didn't annoy her at all. He was humming softly under all this oppression, like nothing affected him – a small breeze in an oven, so to speak. Before stepping into the pod, she lifted the book off the ground and jumped in with more haste than was probably consistent for her personality. As per norm, she didn't care. GIR tumbled in after her.

Inside wasn't very spacious. Rounded walls, spanning around plainly... A big button said _BELOW BASEMENT SECRET LEVELS TO LABS AND STUFF_ and guess which one she pressed. With a ding, the doors slipped shut and down the pair descended.

Something was coming up ahead, she felt. When those doors opened, things would stir, and she'd be trapped in the spiral with it all. It'd be a struggle to breathe, and things would break all too easily all around her. It'd probably be hell. These were just basic instincts she felt, and rarely were they wrong.

Might as well read first.

As Gaz sat down to absorb her find within this murky interior, GIR stepped forward. With a tug, his doggy hood rolled back and he let his cyan eyes illuminate the pages for her. He had the stupidest grin she'd seen in a while, and considering the nature of Gaz's company, that was saying something.

To be honest, the girl was greatly confused by these gestures. She didn't really get why the stupid thing was being nice when GIR's one personality trait (that she'd gathered) seemed to be eating everything within immediate vicinity, but hell if she was complaining.

"Alright, alright," she admitted, "I don't get it, but you've been good. …So, when we're done, I'll…" she thought a moment, "I'll… …Okay, I don't know what I'll do, but I'll think of something good to get you, I guess. For Christmas, maybe. You like food, right? Tacos sound good?"

GIR was practically shaking with delight at the mention.

What a happy freak... Gaz took a slight inhale and looked to the cover. On one side, the number #277 was scrawled in chalk. Without any further delay, she spread the covers and delved right into the literature.

 _March 10_ _th_ _, 3023_

 _Greetings, new comrade. I am…_ _ **Sergeant Slab Rankle**_ _! Finest soldier in all of America. And you… You are officially my two hundred and seventy-seventh sub-log! Here, I will fill your pages with one –_ _and-only-one_ _– specific issue that befalls our glorious fortress, and it is up to you to keep the contents of your pages legible for falling-back purposes._

 _Your issue… …Is something quite foreboding, Sergeant Slab will not lie._ I̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶

 _Come on, Slab! Confidence is key! Gyah, this is already unprofessional, sub-log… Well, here's the subject you'll specialize in: there is a shadow lingering within our vulnerable, lowest areas. You may ask, "well, why don't you put this in the sub-log about the mall's various, susceptible shadows? Log 200?" and the answer is that this one's… Different._

 _It was found… Or should I say she was found? At 7:11 PM, while I was in the tunnels beneath the main building that're near the memory-wiping sector. Eggheads were just finishing up on that Dib kid for… The third time this year, wasn't it? (God, every time that kid catches wind of something weird, he won't stop coming in to figure us out. But since we keep wiping his memory, he falls for the same trap over and over each time he gains enough nerve to suspect us. Would've turned him into a zombie ages ago, but his father's the last man to invoke the wrath of... Humour is good for staff morale anyhow…) They were taking the idiot up to the top, and since it was still opening hours I stayed behind, just in case some trespassers slipped in these more innocent, sensitive areas._

 _So it's just trusty_ _ **Sergeant**_ _ **Slab**_ _ **Rankle**_ _and the dear tunnels._

 _And then that shadow showed up._

 _I noticed down the hall that all the lights were shutting off (see log 123 for concerns about power-grid). And that those dim patches kept getting closer. There are no windows below ground, so it was pitch black within seconds._

 _Then there were this pair of weird eyes, sub-journal. A sissy purple. They lit up some weird teeth under them. I ordered for identification, but they approached anyway._

 _I didn't know what it wanted. It was saying something about needing to purge some child in this… Voice… That reminded me of mother (a complete dead-ringer, actually…how?!), but I turned my flashlight on in its face to get a better look. It screamed and then it disappeared into the dark. The second it did, the lights turned on._

 _When the Eggheads came back, I explained what happened, and they told me to start taking pills. I know what I saw, sub-journal, make no mistake like those morons and the supervisor did! Whatever it was, I hope that it's the last I've seen of it…_

… _Think I just saw something on camera C-49. Trespassers! Apologies, sub-journal 277! Sub-journal 31 is needed!_

 _I'll look into this more tomorrow. That is a pledge!_

 _-S.S.R_

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _March 11th_

 _I –_ _ **Sergeant Slab Rankle!**_ _– went digging through the records today to find leads, as promised. Right off the bat was I disappointed, since sadly ex-head officers Lisa Bart, Tomas Jerr and Jake Finns didn't keep logs at all… My ray of hope came, however, when I found the notes of 3017's janitor Oswald Docs' buried in an old filing unit. At first, you wouldn't even consider touching something so unofficial and hippish, but these notes seem to designate the time when this thing first showed up – since nothing before his time even sniffs at it existing._

 _Now, everybody wrote this boy off. But immediately, I smelled some similarities to what I'm dealing with. Docs describes encountering something during his shift in the lower floors. Unlike my case, where the lights dimmed automatically, he heard it roaring first, all through the compound. He'd followed the sounds to some corridor below ground, where some goopy pile of bones rested just as it ripped out the generator. It'd been wheezing and vomiting a darker, chunky, odorless liquid, and once it was dark, the breathing calmed somewhat. Doc heard it scrape towards him, and though he describes it as much smaller than I did, it's obvious we're dealing with the same scoundrel. According to his description, it's:_

 _-Dark and unstable_

 _-Hates light(note keep 50_ _th_ _floor on standby – high-powered flashlight need t/b well-stocked on batteries)_

 _-Vanishes upon being "killed"_

 _-Has eyes that change colour(keep in mind)_

 _-Lots of teeth_

 _-Around five feet in size(? sounded much larger when I saw it then again it might've grown over almost six years)_

 _It tried to stab him with something, he wrote, and he tried bashing it with a broom. When that didn't kill it, he beamed his high-powered flashlight directly at its eyes and it disintegrated with a scream._

 _Now I –_ _ **Sergeant Slab Rankle!**_ _ **–**_ _have proof that this is not some foul hallucination. Sadly, Docs next notes only comment on some sort of circle being inscribed subtly on various surfaces that he noted while waiting for its next appearance... But considering there's a massive bite mark in the page and that this is the day Docs went missing, I think this lead is gone forever. Mick Ducks replaced him as janitor, and he didn't keep any recordings about his cleaning rounds at all. Again, even when I presented these papers, the supervisor told me to take medication. As if I –_ _ **Sergeant Slab Rankle!**_ _**–**_ _would ever let pharmaceuticals impair me on duty!_

 _As for those circles?_

 _I've seen plenty of rats in my day. Ones affiliated with the devil? Don't make me laugh._

… _It's funny, actually. I remember back when that Dib kid was being dealt with last time. Wiping his memory's always tricky – takes huge doses of power for the extractor to get him out of our hair, but I remember when he was half-lucid, he still tried to tell us he was right for attempting to expose our operation. Once, the scoundrel tried to tell us about an alien being an even bigger problem to us both, and tried to get us to help him out with our tech. Lead egghead, that woman… La-something… I remember, she patted his young head, and called him crazy._

 _Wonder if this is how he felt before that chunk of his mind got ripped out._

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _March 12-15_

 _All clear._

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _March 16_ _th_

 _After the green child trespassed tonight (I already wrote down our epic squabble in sub-log 47), I herded the zombies back. Something was off, I noticed s_ _everal specimens were missing. The lab coats aren't going to like this. I also noticed suspiciously large piles of dust…_

 _Why am I writing these here, and not logs 190 and 12?_

… _Call it intuition._

 _Intuition, and the fact I swore I saw purple eyes in the dark…_

 _Me and that freak aren't done. I can taste it._

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _March 29_ _th_

 _Everyone says it's a clump of rats in the trick of the light, but Slab Rankle wasn't born yesterday!_

 _She made it further this time. I know it's a she, she tried to talk to me again. Didn't stick around long… Now technically, there might've been a nest of these shadowy things, but I have intuition, sub-log! This is a solo-operation!_

… _She used mother's voice again when she screamed. ...She disappears in the flashlight..._

 _I'm not crazy..._

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _March 30_ _th_

 _Eyes peeled._

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _March 31_ _st_

 _I don't know what she did or how she did it. I saw him, sub-journal. I saw Docs. I saw three of our missing officers from the last week – Sam A. Clove, Rosanne Verse, and Dale Chipper. And I saw at least six of the missing zombie soldiers._

 _They stood around me. They didn't look real, sub-log. It was like they were made of plastic… I saw these types of builds back in the war… The skins're too white, eyes… Might as well have been china saucers stuffed in the sockets… Unnatural…_

 _You'd think that they wouldn't be able to get under the skin of Sergeant Slab Rankle, but they did… Something about their eyes. They strip you naked in a second…_

 _They tugged everything out of me, journal. Months of training to withstand interrogation. Undone in seconds. And I didn't say anything. I could feel them, throwing my memories like lemons into a squeezer for them to nourish on...!_

 _They know about my childhood, somehow. The things mom did to me, they wouldn't stop talking about her… I didn't want to remember those days… Not once in a million years… They brought up the boys in the war… They brought up the old general… God. GOD! HOW?!_

 _I shot them! AND THEY DIDN'T FALL! I shot each of them at least three times each, and all I got was dust! THAT GODDAMN DUST, JOURNAL! WHERE ARE THEIR BODIES?! WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS EVEN MEAN?! WHAT AM IS SLAB RANKLE EVEN FACING?!_

 _Then she showed up. And in mo… No. No, in that brute's voice, she told me the games were just beginning. And then she vanished again._

 _I hadn't even touched my flashlight._

…

 _They heard the shots and came down. I am safeguarding us all. Sergeant Slab Rankle does not want their medication._

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _April 1_ _st_

 _She has a sense of humour…_

 _All day, there were disturbances in the feeds. These red lines. I have to go deep into the wiring to find the problem. Do you know what it was?_

 _Do you know what was stuck in the wiring, sub-log?_

 _A toy train._

 _A complete replica of Emerald Detour I had as a kid._

 _The second I took it out, everything returned to normal. It makes no sense._

 _She's messing with me._

 _She knows._

 _She knows everything…_

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _April 2nd-May 30_ _th_

 _All clear…_

 _June 1_ _st_

 _Something's messing with the cameras still. Wiring's fine. I don't know what's wrong. These red lines are annoying._

 _June 2_ _nd_

 _Where is she? Where is she?!_

 _I see words in these lines! STOP REPEATING "FAILURE"! I WAS IN THE WAR, DAMN YOU! THE GREATEST SERGEANT AMERICA'S EVER SEEN!_

 _STOP IT!_

 _STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT_

 _l_

 _l_

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 _June 3…August 18_ _th_

 _All… Clear_

 _she's just waiting_

 _l_

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 _August 19_ _th_

 _There are strange circles all over the damn place! NO, SUPERVISOR DOWNS, THESE WEREN'T DONE BY RATS!_

 _He threatened to fire me… Maybe…_

 _No. No, Sergeant Slab Rankle is never wrong! Sure, I was mistaken at Long Sound battle, big deal…! Maybe I made a mistake and cost us 12,000 men_

 _NO._

 _ **NO.**_

 _MY RECORD IS PERFECT, DAMN YOU!_

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _August 25_ _th_

 _I did it, sub-log. I took the pills._

 _To be honest, I… Feel normal. Huh._

… _Well, the best way for a soldier to move forward is to admit defeat. …To be honest, things feel more sure-fired without these hallucinations. Maybe… Maybe the shadow was just delusions…_

 _Therapy's not needed, but maybe keeping an open mind won't be uncalled for. …Err…_

 _Slab's back on top...?_

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _..._

 _... ..._

 _..._

 _October 28_ _th_

 _She's back._

 _I don't know how, but she returned. In a miserable use of my reflexes, she killed Pricefield right in front of me. I shot her and my bullets did little to nothing. I watched her tug some blue ball from Pricefield's chest with her tail, and gulp it down like it was a dumpling._

 _She's bigger now. I don't know how. She's taller than me. She's shaped like a satyr, but her head… It's like some skeletal goat. There are horns twisting out and a pair of glowing eyes. The flesh rolls down her bones like molasses…_

 _I asked her what she's trying to do._

 _She said it was payback for interrupting a meal._

 _My flashlight only made her greatly uncomfortable. I could tell she vanished only because she wanted to..._

 _l_

 _l_

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 _October 29_ _th_

 _EVERYTHING'S WRONG._

 _HALF THE ZOMBIES HAVE BEEN TURNED INTO THAT DUST._

 _THE SUPERVISOR WON'T LISTEN TO ME –_ _ **ME! SLAB RANKLE!**_

 _I WILL NOT SURRENDER MY MALL TO SOME CRETIN! PRIORITY ONE IS THAT SHADOW! FOR THE GOOD OF MORALITY AND JUSTICE, I WILL FIGHT!_

 _I AM NO FAILURE._

 _I WILL MAKE THIS STRIKE COUNT!_

 _l_

 _l_

 _l_

 _October 30-November 14_ _th_

 _I'm waiting_

 _They laid me off but I'm waiting_

 _This is Slab's territory and I will purge it of all threats_

… _I have a plan._

 _I'll need to shut off the camera feed to do it, though. And I'll need to lure that kid back in._

 _l_

 _l_

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 _November 17_ _th_

 _As I timed it, Dib came back again. Literally could not have picked a better day… If he hadn't returned within the next few weeks from the clues I dropped, I think I might've swiped him myself. Desperate times, journal! Desperate times. Of course his memory got wiped again by the staff, but I knew what to do._

 _I repeated her words in my head, and re-read these entries, journal. I know what she wants. She wants that kid. I knocked the eggheads out when they were done with the extractor. Membrane's kid was unconscious, so I grabbed him by the oversized head and used him as bait._

 _She came. I'll give her credit, she wasted no time trying to kill me. But – SLAB IS ALWAYS PREPARED!_

 _While retreating, I put two-and-two together. Most of the building is powered by generators. That's where she put her circles – around the exposed generators! Clearly, the power going out all over this sweet, dear mall is thanks to that. So…_

 _So what if I purchased a generator she hadn't defiled yet?_

 _And hooked sixty-seven stage lights to it?_

 _I raced her to the plaza. I was prepared._

 _Fourth of July, journal. Fourth of goddamn July._

 _You should've heard her SCREAM. IT'S NOT FUN WHEN IT'S YOU, IS IT?! SHE CRUMBLED APART AND SCREECHED MY NAME AND I WATCHED HER DIE_

 _I WATCHED HER FUCKING DIE_

 _IT WAS GLORIOUS._

 _IT'S DONE._

 _HER SCREAMS ARE PROOF._

 _SLAB RANKLE WON THE FIGHT_

 _FREEDOM, FREEDOM_

 _SLAB RANKLE'S DUTY IS DONE! LIBERATION FROM THESE MEMORIES AT LAST._

 _..._

 _...Continuing,_ _Dib woke up and looked at me like I was insane. He asked to go home and I showed him the door._

 _I was howling the whole time. UFO kid of all people told me I sounded nuts and went home. He won't remember a thing. ...I think this is what my English teachers called irony._

… _Ha. I deserve some down time. Tomorrow, I'll… I'll find another branch suited for me. Time for this old dog to find new turf. This mall…_

 _This mall is finally safe..._

 _..._

If Gaz struggled to read between the smudges and furiously scratched out pages, she could barely make out new "battle tactics" to join security wings and the like.

But the legible part of November 19th was much more interesting.

...

 _November 19_ _th_

 _Why._

 _Why, I did everything right._

 _She's not dead._

 _No. No, despite everything, she isn't._

 _The supervisor called me. All of the zombie specimens have been eaten._

 _All of them._

 _All they've got left is that crazy dust._

 _I'm waiting in the office now._

 _She renovated it while I was gone. Every screen is red now._

 _I don't know when she'll come for me. I don't know what I'll do. The screens laugh at me. I'm tired of running. I threw the pills out. I'm wAI-_

The final "t" started as a vertical line going down, but its base was sent flying in a chaotic, black line. It tore through the white, as though the man who'd crafted it'd been forced to swipe his arm back violently and suddenly from the page...

Despite everything, when the doors slipped open with a ding, Gaz felt herself jolt slightly.

Her stop...

* * *

 **A/N:** **Each staff person's name is a reference. They're all cartoon (and a pair of game) character's names spliced together. See how many you can get.**

 **I didn't want to get specific as to what fucked up shit happened in Slab's childhood, so that's why it's vague. I figured he wouldn't be the sort to directly write down all the EARNESTLY awful stuff that's happened to him, y'know? Also, those of you may remember that the monster sounded way deeper when talking to Zim - certainly not with a woman's voice like it did with Slab. _This is not an inconsistency._ _Trust me._**

 **On a sillier note, Slab was supposed to write his name with big, bolded stars beside it during less insane portions like the fabulous jr. high school girl he secretly is deep inside (I WANT THE NEW HIGH SCHOOL MUSICALS TO STAR ALL THE INSANE DRILL SERGEANT CHARACTERS IN ALL FICTION EVER COULD YOU SEE SLAB, TF2'S SOLDIER, COACH OLEANDER, SERGEANT HARTMAN AND ALL THESE OTHER BATSHIT CRAZY MILITARY DUDES BELTING "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER" LIKE GRAVELY MOTHERFUCKERS GIVE ME THIS HOLLYWOOD DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY YOU'LL MAKE CHRIST ALMIGHTY), but the site wouldn't register the text symbols. x'c I'm kinda sad I didn't get to truly add unadulterated man-childishness to the mix, but oh well...**

 **Considering how little I've been able to sleep, I think these two bad boys are gonna be totally spruced later. Probably in an Orwellian style without me ever telling you guys, mweheheheh... Think I should bump the rating to an M, or are we still good? And should the "Adventure" genre be swtiched to "Mystery"? Also, is Gaz alright? Always open to suggestion, folks! :P**

 **(PS: I do not intend for there to be any more than friendship between Gaz and GIR, so... Yeah.)**

 **Well. Uh… That was that. See you at a saner date hopefully maybe? :P**


	7. Reverse Drip(Wicked Flight)

**A/N:** **LONGEST CHAPTER YET! OVER 6,000 WORDS TOTAL! Figured y'all deserve fair warning.**

 **I changed the cover image... And I feel awful, because to be honest in my craze of downloading pretty pictures to look at on my laptop I have no idea who made it, heh... I just felt it suited this better than some generic-ass trees and I figure I'll keep it until I produce my own cover. It's probably from DA, but I can't remember my own account anymore since I never used it like ever lol.**

 **I'm also cracking up, because apparently we've gone from 50-something readers to 22. XD I mean, most would probably be discouraged, but the only way I can seem to take it is that I must be an intense motherfucker or something and... Heh-heh. Well, I don't wanna say I scared them off, but still. I'm remarkably tempted to take the quiet view count as an almost-compliment. Besides, 22 readers is more than I can count on my fingers, which is really further than what I'd imagined I'd get since I've never written for this fandom before lol. Welp, off we go! Buckle in, kiddies! We're gonna have lots of fun this time, I think.**

 **While saluting Becki, I also salute thee, Pirate64! Support like this really goes a long way, and it's reassuring to hear my work's been well-received by others. :P We've about reached the point where I start getting REALLY nervous about writing chapters, too(pressure to adhere to continuity and attention to detail is intimidating like that), so seriously thanks man.**

 **Hope this doesn't disappoint, guys. :) Writing this was a total blast.**

* * *

All was quiet.

Gaz kept her knuckles tightly laced around her bat, and her shoulders hunched within the main lab. Each reflex was ready. Even though the storm outside had stabbed every bit of her with wind and ice, for some reason, it felt much colder in this chamber. Tenser.

She liked that, at least…

Her footsteps were rather silent, smooshed in the powder that pooled around her ankles, but as far as visual concerns went the lab's sputtering lightbulb was terribly unhelpful in showing the misanthrope the way. GIR's headlights weren't much help, either. Though he'd remained silent under Gaz's instruction, his thrilled form could be seen darting around various broken tubes, spilling cyan beams chaotically whenever he turned his face. As such, it was required of her to strain her memory, and furthermore forced a fair share of careful navigation on her part to step around all the insane debris.

To be honest, Gaz usually went into dark places whenever possible anyway (more than one type, to boot), so this wasn't _terribly_ difficult. Perhaps a bit tense, considering that a hulking brute of a beast (one that'd turned a Sergeant into an asylum patient) could potentially be lingering a few feet away at any given moment… But that didn't require her dusty "panic" switch to activate then and there. If anything, it just required additional composure. Adrenaline often led to crappy decisions, and if Gaz had a choice, she'd like to have died on equal thinking terms with her killer. So, she kept that thrumming urge to swing at shadows a cautiously suppressed one...

Cold sweat subtly rolled down her back, regardless. But she refused to acknowledge it beyond typical disdain.

…Something crunched under her boot.

The girl looked down, and in the flicker of the overhead bulb, saw the nametag of Sergeant R. Slab Rankle gleaming beneath her toe.

"…Where the hell are the corpses...?" whispered the girl, giving the floor a concerned look around. Strange thing to wish for, but it was rather off-putting – being stuck in a place full of death and being unable to see a single trace of it…

A muffled squeal left GIR in the distance, which caught her attention.

In the robot's headlights was Zim's weird little moose toy. In the bluish glow, Gaz could make out that it was dormant, with an array of plugs digging into its underbelly from some bulky terminal. Its expression was vacant, and its eyes were full of codes. GIR was currently dancing in place before it, probably trying to find some way to say hello without use of his mouth.

…It was sad.

Goddammit.

Gaz sighed, taking a hand to rake through her hair. "You. Come here," she growled, unable to believe what she was about to do.

GIR obeyed.

And despite everything she stood for... Gaz unzipped his mouth.

"AW BOY! Thank you~!" GIR shrieked. He leapt up and pecked her cheek (Gaz nearly smashed him right there) before waving frantically at his moosey… Pal? Brother? Colleague? …Eh. "HI LOUISE! DID'JA MEET MAH HUMAN BIRDIE FRIEND?! SHE A TENNIS PLAYER! SHE PLAYS PAINTBALL WITH HER ARMS AN' IS GONNA BUY US USED TACOS FER CHRISTMAS!"

Gaz flinched slightly and tucked her limbs back.

"You havin' good dreeeaaams?" GIR poked the plushie, "Dreams're squishy! In myyyy last dream, _I_ was squishy and everybody gave me a birthday party and the honor to kill _EVERYTHING AH' HATE!_ …But don't tell Carrie, Barrie, or Mary, okay? Barrie's gonna go green an' spin like a top, and MARY, Mary's gonna be sooo sad, 'cause that ain't right to her, and Carrie's gonna…"

"What's it doing?" asked Gaz, hoping to change the subject towards where the hell Zim and his head full of mad-scientist antics had gone, "What's with the codes? Where's Zim? Can it hear us right now?"

GIR looked between them. "Louise is sleeping," he explained with a hush, "Zim don't like it when I cause Armageddon during uploads, so we both have to shut down – 'cause democracy."

"You guys have democracy?" snorted the girl, disbelieving.

GIR shrugged and kept yammering at the moose toy. Gaz, deciding this wasn't worth her time, shrugged and started to wander off for something more interesting.

And wouldn't you know, there was something interesting close by.

Slowly, the gamer edged towards a faint red glow in the floor a few feet away, right on the other side of the terminal. If she strained her hearing, she could've sworn she heard something that sounded like talking…

"…she's the nicest cake in the world, you know. Just a different flavour from…"

"A hole?" she commented, perplexed (thank god she was just with GIR – oh, if she was with Dib, his latest sarcasm streak would've had a field day with just that comment alone – the obnoxious twat). It was perfectly carved in, and totally unnatural. What the hell was that doing here? She appreciated spooky, demonic lighting as much as the next person, but this was downright peculiar.

Voices were definitely echoing out from it, but it was so quiet from where she was, the she wasn't sure whose they were…

"…They're all a lil' mushy, but-Hey!" GIR tweeted and looked to where his current, scary cohort was and zipped on over, "Wazzat, Euna? Wazzat, wazzat, wazzat?!"

Gaz opened her mouth, but GIR kept going and like an idiot peered right into the red pit as whitish light crept out, interwoven with the red. Considering his insane laughter, Gaz's curiosity felt compelled to step forward a bit, and peered on in, too.

About thirty feet down, there was… Some massive summoning circle. It was the source of the light, which was surrounded at all sides by dirt. In its center was a creature she'd never seen before, something she was sure would've triggered her brother's inner fanboy to charge at it like an idiot. What truly caught her eye, however, were the sleek goat horns protruding from its skull…

 _There you are,_ Gaz thought, _Hope you like hell, because here I am, coward…_

Just outside the circle was a green head surrounded by black. At first, Gaz thought she saw him decapitated, but the struggling of his features and his neck said otherwise. Found the alien, and found the killer – Gaz could neatly scratch those off her to-do-list.

One of the walls of the dirt chamber had white… Portals? Covering it. What _were_ those, anyway?

"Hee-hee!" giggled GIR, "He's like a Christmas present! You got presents for me, goat man?!"

"Look stupid," Gaz said, "If I can't hear them, then they can't hear us."

GIR screeched, "YOUUU, GOT, PRESEEEENT-"

It was that moment the whole world shifted. It started with a drop – a sudden feeling something strange was about to unfurl. A line of colourful electricity that slipped through the ceiling a second before vanishing, disrupting her order a touch. Just a drop on a pond.

Then came the downpour.

Gaz did react when the overhead tiles shattered apart under the pressure. When a screeching wave of supernatural bullshit sizzled on down and to descend against the entire lab floor amidst the rotating shards.

…She just didn't react fast enough.

It crashed down on her. Suddenly, her eyes scorched. Each vein lit in pain and salt – reverberated in their gelatin cases against their sockets before sizzling into themselves.

Colours were everywhere.

Screaming violets and teals and mangos slipped into her ears, tearing down in chaotic sounds that broke inside her head and sought to tear her flesh apart. Electricity played on her hairs and she felt her skin unraveling in place. An echoing thing scraped from her lungs and out her mouth, and it wasn't until after the fact she realized this thing was her own voice tearing through the cascade.

More than anything, the smothering. Each pore had no privacy. Each centimeter, each secret, each little feeling was lapped out of her body by all the life shuttling past into the hole. What felt like thousands of electric bodies tugged at her figure to spill everything into each other in this rippling orgy of agony. Licking away at everything that made her an individual to join their collection of souls. Her vision turned sickly, gold leaving faint freckles in the black, and with lead-like legs she pushed herself out best she could. Voices of hundreds of people echoed in her skull. She trudged at a horrifically slowed pace, feeling her limbs weighten. Anywhere to escape this rainbow of death, she thought, in fading sobriety.

Pain drowned everything.

PAINPAIN _PAIN-_

The girl suddenly felt air on her leg and with all the strength left in her crumbling form she caved on it. Out she stumbled, sliding into a cold, cold wall, wheezing and shaking. Like an ended hug, the energy slipped off her form and went back to their own kind. Oxygen dribbled down the cracks in her throat in their stead. Gradually, she felt her body stabilize, and she slithered to the floor below to cradle her knees, hissing and cursing as water involuntarily itched her vision.

Her hands gripped her scalp. Was she hyper-ventilating? Everything prickled, even her thoughts. Everything was so strained.

Not two feet away from the girl was an array of nonsensical, burning iridescence. A chaotic mess of shades that should've completely annihilated one another, but remained pure in eye-melting hue. It surged down like a waterfall, crashing into the floor where it all seemed to descend down the hole. Thankfully, she must've been close to the edge of the torrent. If she'd been nearer to the heart of the room…

Someplace too far away to reach the exit…

She didn't even want to think of it. But she did. And she shivered. If the misanthrope had anything to say about it, she wouldn't poke one toe into that hell ever again. Instead, she sat wild-eyed, pressing herself deep into the reassuring chill.

"That guy's head is being funny! It's backways! Heeheehee – hey, he's hugging Zim!" pointed GIR, voice oddly fluctuating, "Aw, master's scratching like a kitty! Bad mastah! …Wait, he don't look happy… …Aww…" a strange, staticy noise left the bright column, and suddenly the gizmo looked to his hands in concern. "Wait, wazzat…?…I… T-That don't feel good…" he knocked against his own head with a frown. "Somethin' ain't right…" he muttered.

"Wu-What's going on?!" Gaz shouted, squeezing herself against the wall to get away from the light.

As if to spite her, GIR stood in it all, glitching slightly in the hues. He turned to her with confused eyes, ones that couldn't seem to make sense of what was messing with his circuits. Cautiously, he started to step towards her, a hand raised.

"I… I dunno!" he murmured, "I feels weird…! Umm... I don't like it, pretty lady! Uh… Could ya please h-"

With each step, though, more fluctuating seemed to occur, and eventually the cyan sputtered into an intimidating crimson. Then – strained and in panic – it went back. Frantically, the blue tried to fight the encoded responses, but…

"W-Where'd I go-?" GIR trembled, hyperventilating and scanning around, like a child looking for their mother. The red started cutting through, and GIR shook, starting to cry, while raising metallic digits to his eyes as if he could stop whatever was seizing them. "N-Noooo…! Mah head's for kitten snacks only! Don't kill the magic snack place! _It's scARY IN-!"_

Then it went forth.

Seemed the red was there to stay. That frustratingly friendly nature didn't seem to be apparent now… What stood before Gaz was a drone. Its limbs were pin-straight and its march was perfect.

A SIR unit and nothing less...? Gaz felt her eyebrows knit in confusion. The light seemed to suck life out of people - did that mean GIR, a completely metal contraption crafted of wire and circuitry, even _had_ a soul to begin with - one that could've been extracted at all? Was that what she just witnessed? ...She couldn't say...

The philosophical implications were quite... Philosophical.

One foot after the other, it marched to her side. Most of GIR was silhouetted, spare the recent pallet swap. Honestly… He was quite intimidating…

Ending just at the edge, he spoke.

" _WE MUST SAVE THE MASTER,"_ outdated Irken 00-2H3 model SIR recited.

In her frenzied state, Gaz didn't respond. Then, with the border breaking around his metal form, GIR reached his torso out to the air. And clamped his hand around her arm.

This GIR did not response to her aggrieved cry. Despite how she screeched that, "it hurt!" and "let go, you crazy moron!" and most importantly, "NO!", his legs automatically leaned back and effortlessly yanked them both into the soul-waterfall again.

He did not care that she bucked, or that he disturbed her skin, or that she was in horrific agony. GIR didn't chirp or smile or provide quirky assistance. The SIR simply triggered his rockets and plunged deep into the hole, oblivious to the agony shooting through his charge's every cell.

Gaz could barely focus on anything. There was a jolt when GIR swerved into a foreign figure, grasped that, and sped off for the rest of the room beyond the asphyxiating hues. There was a final second of pain, and then as though breaking through an ocean's surface she felt cool air break against her cheeks…

(-)

His prison shattered, and out he flew. In vertigo, making sense of what was happening was beyond him, but as directives stop scrambling Zim was able to gain control of his limbs back.

Then he fell shoulder-first into the dirt. That didn't matter at the moment, though.

Oxygen.

Greedily, the Invader drank, gasping where he lay. The hideous tingly feeling routing his molecules, though consuming, was slowly dying down, and sure enough he was able to recall what the hell was going on. Despite the strangely weakened feeling spreading in his system, he sat up. The tail still rung around his torso, though the vertebrae was much, much looser from prior, and upon going upright it pooled around his hips. Judging from the inhuman screeching coming from the circle and the way the end was torn, it'd seem that it… Was ripped right off somehow. A contact lay on the ground, meters away, and the second said contact was acknowledged its twin unfastened and fell to Zim's lap. He supposed his disguise wasn't really necessary here, so he didn't bother with that…

He instead bothered to detect the wheezing from someone nearby over the monster's cursing.

Of all the people Zim had expected to see upon glancing over, Dib's fellow spawn from hell was probably the last one on his list. Not to mention, seeing that hellspawn faring in agony seemingly worse than his own, panting and clutching her sides like pins were skewering them, cursing, and gasping in mimicry of an ill fish…

This was a weird day.

"How did you g-"

"Everyone is going to die," her voice clawed out, _"I'll do it myself…"_

That wasn't too strange of her, he conceded. So he just shrugged. "Uh, yeah, but-"

Someone was behind him as well. Someone metallic and spouting red light and-

"Wait! GIR!?" Zim cried in confusion at his saviour, "How did you get here?! You're supposed to be guarding the house, you-" a bit of caution followed, "…You're in duty mode as well without my instruction? …How did you-"

"Irrelevant. There is an immediate threat," GIR reported with a point to said threat. And that was all GIR said. Attached to a set of cables, an enormous weapon erected from the inside of his head and zeroed in on the monster. Multiple barrels for blasting bullets, and one in the center for rockets. Little speaker systems were subtly installed on the sides, and yellow borders snaked along it. Zim raised an eye ridge at the sight of the delightful RYNO V, realizing that for the umpteenth time GIR had gotten it lodged in his cranium. But he listened to his minion anyway and looked over.

Said monster seemed utterly livid. Who wouldn't be, after their tail had been ripped right off? Its great hands clawed at the Earth beneath it, clenched and zealous as saliva dripped from its maw.

"YOU… _INGRATES…"_ it snarled, "YOU DARE MAKE A FOOL OF ME? I WILL DEVOUR EACH OF YOU AND YANK YOUR SOULS OUT FROM _THE REMNANTS LEFT BETWEEN MY TEETH."_

Zim gave a weak sneer, and carefully brought himself up to his spider legs with a fair bit of exertion. Wobbling upwards, he felt his PAK cables spark somewhat inside and his hemolymph speed. Suddenly, his nerves were given an additional kick as artificial energy crawled throughout his body. Zim felt his eyes scrunch in worry at this. The back-up generators were in play now… Was he in that bad a condition? The Invader hid this distaste best he could, despite his growing strength. He'd definitely need to sleep after this show-down. There was an hour left at best before his PAK battery gave out, which would force a coma state, leaving him completely defenseless for several hours…

Irrelevant. That was a "then" problem. An hour was more than enough to deal with this… …Whatever this was.

"We're faring better than your spinal column though, aren't we?" he hissed out with a chuckle and a gesture to the useless limb twitching on the ground.

Oddly, these words didn't have their intended mocking effect. The beast actually calmed its anger and crooned somewhat in thought.

"Hmm," it commented, "That's a rash statement, given the current scenario, wouldn't you say?" it slid down into a starting position, "I think you spoke out of turn. Perhaps holding your tongue will be easier once I rip it from your mouth?"

Black matter reformatted itself and a new tail writhed in the air. Without warning, its owner tore out from the circle unfettered with an otherworldly bellow that shook Zim somewhat.

Explosive rockets and bullets burst from GIR's head (in tune to some classical piece Zim still didn't recognize), and the beast ran into each of them with no sign of impairment, claws bared for the Irken's flesh. The PAK legs responded completely automatically, jumping into the air, skating across the creature's scalp, and to the sloping wall. One leg met its mark in the vertical dirt expanse-

The thing grinned and a bunch of familiar, black tendrils shot up to grasp the remaining three PAK legs before Zim could reach, yanking him back down with a cry. The free leg held, leaving Zim's body to flail uselessly between them. All too soon, he found his face illuminated in the bloody glow of the monster's eyes, not twelve inches away.

It seemed the tendril thingies were being summoned out of the ground… It probably could've called forth more, but as the green menace had learnt all too well from his brawls with Dib, he knew why it didn't. There was always something too entertaining about seeing the ones you loathe squirm under the barest efforts... Just how many stupid tricks did this thing have?!

"Silly me. You keep acting like them, so I keep forgetting you're _not_ human," it snickered, "Your tongue starts in your throat, right? Tell me, _'Invader'_ …" so many awful teeth in that grin. _Rows_ of them… _"…Ever heard of a guillotine?"_

Zim scowled and reached into his coat. "Oooooh, I dunno ever heard of VORTIAN-ISSUED 629-MODEL PISTOL SHOTS _TO THE FACE?!"_ he roared, open firing on his attacker, " _DIIIIIIIIEEEEEE! DIE-DIE-DIE-DIE-_ _DIE_ _!"_

In the concentrated, frost-shaded shots, Zim could see goopy flesh peel off and shatter in a series of bullets. There was exposed bone and twisted lines of black veins that were overridden with bursting, foreign elements. It was glorious. Temperature seared through the tendons binding its head, coupled with the RYNO V's piles of ammo, and as he was starting to feel victorious

 _Sloggraajath!_ Zim cursed in his native tongue, it was _still_ grinning at him!

The loaded discs fizzed out and the guns fell hopelessly to the ground. A rasping laugh overtook the room, and as if nothing had befallen it, the demon's skin crawled back over its head, much to the Invader's ire. Milky bone swept out of sight within seconds... In the bursting fires of GIR's bullets and missiles, its enamels practically twinkled like vast lines of stars…

"I thought your brain was supposed to be advanced. God, if that's the extent of your wit, I'm gonna be disappointed when I swallow your head…"

In the background of Zim's bleating threats and GIR's endless onslaught of ammunition bursting against the monster's back, (as well as the occasional swipe from a glowing-alien-knife-weapon whenever a lone tendril decided to try pinning the SIR unit) Gaz groaned and swayed to her limbs. Her head was throbbing, but despite everything – despite almost having her very life torn out, her very existence crushed, and her body exhausted beyond compare to any of her bad mornings – her hands remained clasped tightly at her sides anyway.

She drunkenly glanced to them. They shook. Fatigue played in, yes, but…

With a stagger forward, Gaz's weak, weary legs started marching. Her shoulders struggled to keep her neck still. Her eyelids weighed down. Her blood thrummed. Each bit of her felt so flighty and fickle in keeping her alive…

But her teeth shone, and fire licked her core. This was her role in life.

 _Vengeance_. It would be hers _._ Even if she had to die to get it.

…Feh. Like death was _ever_ a concern anymore...

She approached… GIR… Or the robot that pretended to be him now, at any rate, and despite her swaying vision she ignored the blaring of William Tell's Overture and gripped him by the antenna with a startlingly formable vice.

"You… _Stupid…!"_ the misanthrope glared, struggling to tug him up, but strength grew in her fury, "You… You _let_ this happen to me. You _knew_ it would hurt me."

The robot carried on firing, not even bothering to look. "Irrelevant. The master is-"

The girl grabbed GIR's head with both limbs, and felt her fingers dig into the metal. Despite turning his body to face her, the rockets kept firing as GIR was forced to stare at her form, blank-faced.

Ugh. He was so dead, it was creepy.

"Did I give you permission to speak…? No? … _Then can it,"_ she breathed against his eyes, creating a thin fog, "I don't care what it's statistically capable of. Your oversized toy is useless here. If you want to save your 'master'… Answer me. … _Why_ did you bring me down here?"

GIR answered coldly. "Statistically, whenever you – officially listed as "the Gaz human" – decide to involve yourself, odds of victory increase depending on what you desire by 87%. Data gathering facilities were disabled outside duty-mode parameters, so extent and cause of damage remained unknown at that time. Standard-issued apology-measures are to be deployed in t-minus three seconds. … _'Sorry_ '," a pitiful collection of 'standard confetti' was released from his head, which floated down slowly to a sad trumpet noise, "Please release me, or I will be required to use force on your person."

That certainly tickled her funny bone. "Heeuh… Hah, ha ha ha… Ah, nice one, blockhead – wanna use force?" Gaz snarled, tightening her grip (even the soulless mech had to respond a bit to that, as he let out a systematic, pained drone), "Go on and blow up the only person who knows this thing's weaknesses. _I dare you."_

GIR blinked. "What would – _the Gaz human_ – advise, then? Assistance thus far has been… Pathetic."

Gaz glared. "You," she began, "Are _so_ lucky I'm more pissed at that thing than I am at you…"

Zim still tried to yank himself free. By this point, his coat had fallen and had pooled off his head during his struggles, making him almost totally unarmed. Not a good effect to be under when one was blurting whatever threats they could to stall for time under the monster's nauseatingly amused scrutiny.

"-an-and even _if_ you devour the lives of every awful creature here – by the way, how DARE you take ZIM'S job?! – w-what good will that do when the Massive finally arrives to your doorstep, huh?!" the Invader shakenly demanded, "T-They'll notice my absence, you know. They'll at least send _fifty_ of their greatest warships! You will be reduced to ashes! And over those ashes? They'll build a monument dedicated to me – ZIM! – the greatest Invader ever! One that spans this entire, feeble rock! They have records of my laugh, and they'll play it on a loop, for eternity! Mocking whoever dared to render the Armada shortened of their greatest warrior! You will be cursed by the Tallest forever! CURSED! And ultimately done in by me! In the end, a martyr, to the unstoppable Irken race!"

"…Cute," the monster decided with a sneer, "I was trying to think of a word for you. 'Think I'll go with that."

"WHAT PART OF MY PASSING LEADING TO PLANETARY DESTRUCTION WON'T SINK IN?!" Zim yelled, the effect of which diminished slightly with his voice breaking. One over-sized claw pressed into his midsection, increasing pressure to break the uniform and the skin beneath as it gradually rose up his body, much to Zim's belligerent noises of distress.

"Except it won't, will it? Not really," its breath reeked of rot, "I saw enough. You know it too, don't you? On some, buried level, you know they don't-"

"-care, _'Your mission's a lie!'_ , blah-blah-BLAH," Zim spat, clenching his muscles as the claw slowly grazed deeper into his tissues, refusing to let his discomfort fully show, "W-Well, I have news for you, _death-smut.._. You're not the first person to try and feed me that hideous fib! I AM the Tallest's greatest asset – and none of you fools OR your jealousy will EVER knock that fact away! So says ZIM! So… So don't even try! … _Creep!"_

The claw browsed right into his breastbone, ignoring Zim's now obvious hiss of pain. Pink, sticky liquid trickled into the dirt from the torn line that stopped right at the collar. For a moment, the thing seemed to purr.

"Guess there is no way to tell you Santa's not real, is there?" it mused, giving its digit a brief lick. It seemed to mull the flavour over for a minute before it unhinged its mouth again. A snake-like tongue whipped into the air and licked its rows of two thousand, two hundred and twelve canines, as Zim's PAK automatically relayed.

"You were a fun change of pace," it said completely clearly somehow, without moving its mouth, _"Come along now, runt. It's time to be disposed of."_

Before Zim could truly analyse why that line broke his composure and had sent a primal fear flowing through his whole body, the creature suddenly screeched as several plasma lazers broke through the vines tethering its captive's form. A metallic hand seized his collar and yanked the alien skyward, away from the great, swearing jaws.

"G-GIR!" Zim cried, ecstatic with his rescue, "You saved me again?! ...How are you being so useful?!"

GIR didn't respond to that. "Irrelevant. Master, the Gaz human-"

Zim didn't skip a beat. "GIR! Scan this monster for weaknesses!"

"Weaknesses unknown."

"ARGGHHH! EVEN IN LINGERING, NOT-HOMICIDAL DUTY MODE, YOU'RE USELESS?!"

With GIR's other hand wrapped around her waist, Gaz spoke up. "Listen moron," she grumbled, trying to keep hold on her consciousness as her legs flailed beneath her, "Buh… Bullets aren't going to do anything against that… Whatever it is…"

The green menace glanced to his strange 'ally' in confusion. "What do you mean, Gaz human?" he asked, "In fact, how did you even get here? Why are you helping Zim? Zim certainly hates you, and has done nothing to earn a favour."

" _I'm not here to give you a favour,"_ Gaz hissed, "I-"

The monster's voice ceased cursing and bounded across the room. "Heeey, LOOK WHAT WE GOT!" it exclaimed, "It's specs' dearest, _sweetest_ little sister!"

The thing attached its claws to wall. And then it began stampeding up after them like a maniacal, vertical locomotive in pursuit. "Sorry – I was too caught up to really pay attention to you before! Just now, I checked, and wouldn't you know? Along with space kid there, I've got a piece of your soul from that whole show earlier! It's gonna take a while for you to be 100% again! You're not mad at me, are you Skulls? I mean…"

It lunged to the roof above, and upon attachment summoned a whole sea of writhing tendrils to slither out from the concrete.

"…It's not like you had much of one in the first place, right?!"

They whipped down, forcing GIR to swerve downwards and roll amongst various swiping appendages to escape capture. Revolving down and towards the far wall in midair where their range stopped, the robot fired the last volley of his rockets in the Overture to fight them off. As black matter withered in the fire, Gaz practically exploded in the flier's grip.

"LISTEN TO ME!" she roared over the blasts, "I DON'T CARE WHAT DIB DID - YOU CAN TORTURE HIM ALL YOU WANT, BUT **NOBODY** GETS TO KILL MY FAMILY AND LIVE AFTERWARDS. THAT'S _. JUST. FACT,"_ she seethed, "WHEN I'M DONE WITH YOU, _I'M GOING TO SEND YOU DOWN TO MY BROTHER IN BOXES."_

Zim waited anxiously, expecting to see the monster plunge down from within the wall of tendrils, as he'd never seen it leave the winding clusters.

He hadn't expected to see it on the wall twelve feet away from them, crouched like a frog. He gaped.

 _How'd it even get there?!_

"Why're you so worked up?" it snickered. Zim felt his squeedily-spooch clench. It must've made it there during the explosions – because if he decided to eat now, even with GIR instinctively shooting for another direction, it's enormous body missing would be a slim chance… "Please, Skulls – like anyone would _bother_ sticking around for _you."_

Out it bounded. Under the girl's barking order, GIR killed his rockets right as it departed the wall, and in the freefall, she let something leave her palm. As they all dove, the beast just missed GIR's body by an inch. Sadly, thanks to their angling, the end of Zim's left antenna wasn't so lucky.

The scourge of Irk squealed like a pig as part of him was seized by a molar. Easily the most sensitive organ he knew he had, slit right around its column like an ax to a sapling. Translucent hemolymph clotted down the stalk as the monster darted past them – curved and graceful as a goddamn dolphin before hitting the floor like a cat. GIR's feet reignited and went back to the air while the thing mockingly chewed the end of his poor sensory organ.

"OOOOOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW-" the Irken wailed, whimpering, springing his legs and trying to soothe the stem with his hands, "NYYGGHHH-! FFFSSSZZZZ – YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, YOU!"

The thing just laughed. Again. At his horrible agony. While licking his fluid from its lips. Bastard.

Then it hollered in excruciation as the flash grenade it'd unwittingly swallowed detonated.

Zim almost forgot his agony for a moment, as he watched in both awe and in some degree of pleasure as light soared out from its maw and fellow orifices in its head. This left it hissing – before baying and grappling at its chest. The flesh around the stake especially pulsed, much to the pair's curiosity. Its skin rolled down, destabilizing from its bones before crumbling apart. In its ribs, right beneath the stake was a great ball of soft light, which seemed to suck everything into itself – bones, dermis, and eyes like a vortex before disappearing from existence in an almost comical cloud of dark smoke.

All that remained was a small bit of dust in the dirt. The tendrils above crumbled into dark ash, and gently rained down around them. Like _real_ confetti.

There was a quiet moment, with the three hovering inside the chamber within the glow of the circle and the drizzling ash.

"…How did you know that'd work?" Zim asked, turning to look at her slowly.

The youngest Membrane shrugged. "I… Found the old security guy's journal…" even Zim, oblivious as he was, could detect how utterly exhausted she was, "Apparently, this thing hates light. …Well, artificial light, anyway. It didn't mind the rocket fire... But I guess that grenade did it in for now."

Zim's intact antenna drooped. " _'For now'_?"

"It-"

"Energy spike detected!" blared GIR.

The circle's luminosity seemed to almost lurch. Suddenly, without any of them reacting, it exploded in scarlet light. The Irken could hear Gaz swear, loudly, beside him as it rose up to just brush the ceiling. Supernatural energy sparked through the air in the center, several feet away, rising like a slew of crashing waves. Zim felt the current sizzle through the air and fill everything with an irregular sensation. The whole room seemed to hush in some otherworldly feel, and in said center, the energy gradually descended back down. Seeping back into the lines, it rapidly exposed the beast that lay wheezing in its center, similar to how it had done when he'd first entered.

With snapping bones, it slowly rose to its full height and glowered up with renewed vigor.

It laughed boisterously. "HA! STUPID BRATS! YOU THINK KILLING ME IS SO SIMPLE?" it mocked, "AS LONG AS THIS CIRCLE EXISTS, I CAN ALWAYS RETURN TO YOUR AWFUL CITY!"

Gaz cocked her head in curiosity. "…Wait, that circle's the only thing keeping you here?"

It paused as realization filled its features. Slowly that smile dropped into an uncertain frown.

"…No," it muttered.

Holy shit. And Gaz thought Dib was a bad liar.

Zim raised an eye-ridge. "Heeey, if that's your ultimate weakness, how come it sponged up my plasma shots earlier?"

"Because it is _not_ my weakness!" it snapped, "This circle is **impenetrable** to all except _I!"_

Unfortunately for the abomination, Gaz was rather genre-savvy.

"How close were you to the ground? That might have something to do with it," she offered Zim, "Or maybe you have to be _in_ the circle to destroy it?"

Zim scratched his chin. "Possible, possible… Perhaps _IT_ has to be IN the circle in order for that shield-thingy to trigger?" he added.

Both noted the widened eyes of the creature.

" _Ah,"_ they both said in unison, both too satisfied to really care about the odd coincidence.

"Well…" the thing fumbled. It looked about, exasperated and fuming, before sighing and clapping its hands.

It leapt out the circle, and a virtual army of tendrils exited the ground to wrap and dog-pile around the entire marking. It landed with a thud and glared up for a long, tense moment. Its eyes flickered grey, before going red again.

"Good job, brats," it spoke lowly, "Now you're both at the TOP of the list."

Suddenly it vanished in a wall of black smoke.

Before the Invader could voice any sort of confusion, a pair of big, eager eyes reappeared directly under GIR in the air. GIR, obeying programming and both their cries, tried to blast up, but the monster's tail looped around his leg and brought the three to descend screeching all the way down with it with a long, delighted howl.

Forty-eight minutes left, Zim's timer warned.

* * *

 **A/N: Action woot-woot. :P Operation "get faster update schedule" is in effect! Hopefully the next chapter will be soon! We're nearing the climax of Act one, everyone! It's gonna be intense-r from here on out for a while!**

 **...How acts are there?**

 **...Probably more than three. I don't know.**

 **And as a bonus for the R &C fans, why, pray tell, did GIR have a RYNO V in his head? Okay, so I was watching Death Battles on ScrewAttack!, and this MONSTER of a weapon got described when they were going over Ratchet and Clank's arsenal. Let me give you the run down: it is a machine gun. And simultaneously a rocket-launcher. With shotgun properties. Capable of carrying 3,000 rounds. It is so uber, according to the wiki: "[t]his weapon was unanimously voted "Most Likely to End All Forms of Life" and put on the black list there forever. It also apparently had songs and poems written over it amongst other things." **_**AND IT PLAYS THE WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE ON A LOOP WHILE FIRING s**_ **o, with all this in mind, I ask you:**

 **Could you blame me.**

 **Could. You. BLAME ME – THIS IS THE WEAPON I WILL NAME MY FIRSTBORN AFTER HOLY GOD I NEED TO PLAY THESE GAMES AHHHH**

 **And how did Zim get ahold of one? Well, black-listed or no, this is ZIM we're talking about, isn't it? When have petty things like the LAW ever stopped him from getting a hold of weapons of mass destruction? I imagine the only reason he doesn't carry it with him is because it's simply too big to conceal properly. Meanwhile, GIR probably thought it was shiny, so in his head it went... I dunno lol.**

 **Maybe I should've spent this author's note actually talking about the fucked up things that are happening to the characters.**

 **...Nah. That'd be silly.**

 **...Well, see you all again next update, folks! What happened to GIR? Will he be alright? What the hell even IS the abomination our heroes are facing? What's the deal with its deal with Dib? Can the author write a decent action scene? Is resurrecting Earth's Defender a lost cause? Does Zim have some dark secrets not even he knows about? Will our heroes survive without getting their shit wrecked? Will MINIMOOSE TELL BLOATY THAT POOP-DAWG IS THE FATHER?!**

 **Find out probably at least some of these next time!**

 **...Hopefully!**

 **I mean, I hope so.**


	8. Mental Fishing-trip(Hook the tongues)

**A/N: Psst-** _ **this is longer than the last bad-boy at over 7,000 words. I should've been doing my schoolwork over the time between updates, but I wrote this in between when nobody was looking to meet my imposed deadline –shhhhhh- don't tell my mooooom or my teachers okay i'll get in trouble thanks bye**_

 _ **ps: this chapter was a bitch and a half to boot so I'm sorry it took so long but it was really hard so do please forgive me**_

* * *

Laughter tore over the trio all the way to the floor. There was a flexing of the beast's tail and suddenly they were all slammed directly into the ground – left to rebound away from one another in reeling chaos.

Zim grunted as the earth thumped and rotated around him. Flecks of filth got caught in his mouth, much to his ire, but as his intact antenna's end slipped over the ground it detected another crash. Trembles followed, reporting rapid stomping whenever it brushed below. The impacts were headed his way...

Mid-roll, his spider-legs emerged and vaulted right out the path of the on-coming charge. The black streak in question skidded through the soil several feet away with a low chuckle, despite having just missed its matador. Their red gazes locked a moment as Zim stabilized – here, he noted how the shadows curled around it like flames, decreasing in intensity whilst it slowed along its route. With its smile unhindered, the eyes of the monster glinted. With each limb slashing at the ground, it resumed the charge to Zim's position with an additional, fear-inducing howl.

Refusing to skip a beat, the Invader too charged forward, and sprung over its gnashing teeth this time.

Legs stretched in the air – bound in a slow-motion movement with an expansive monster below – he finally took a breath.

He used this span of 2.56 seconds to scan the vicinity. A ways away lay GIR – the fall hadn't boded well on him, it seemed – his programming possibly made it instinctual to take the brunt of their fall (so he supposed – his minion was behaving oddly. Perhaps the Gaz had tampered with him? Questioning would have to wait). Either way, he seemed to be struggling to realign his circuitry. Not too far away was a trembling Gaz, wrestling to get up, bat in hand. Beneath his own soles was a long, dark body speeding past. And to the far, far wall – all the way across the other room, across the massive circle shrouded in tendrils – was the coat with all his weapons kept within.

The scourge of Irk narrowed his eyes.

He needed a pla

Smoke abruptly rolled past his toes and shrouded his form. He gasped, unable to see anything – not his flailing arms, or his uniform, or his assailant – just a swallowing blackness. There was a sound right above him accompanied by a triumphant, otherworldly screech of pleasure and reconstructing bones.

" _PREDICTABLE TERMITE!"_ a familiar tail constricted Zim's body in a sudden choke-hold, "GOTCHA!"

Cardiac functions skipped their rhythm- "ARGH-!"

Whipped through the smoke, he screamed. Motion swerved over his whole body, and once more the ex-elite found himself just about to get suplexed right into the dirt with great force. With a series of thoughts, blue light from his PAK shields quickly encased him and seared right through the spinal extension that'd once bound him. Bits of… Bone? Rotated about in the air with him as his fall slowed, and the skeletal coil unravelled from his torso. The middle of its tail burnt at the bottom of his bubble.

Everything decelerated a moment.

In response, the creature roared in fury and swiped the electric bubble with a closed fist, breaking it without care of the burn it left in its flesh. This sent the pee-wee destroyer tumbling across the arena in Gaz's direction with a new bruise on his already scabbed belly.

Once his legs had concluded chaotically sprawling all over the place around his form, his body picked proper a position to be humiliated with. Skidding on his face, the green menace stopped right at her crouched side. His feet were the last to impact the ground, which they did lifelessly. …No, comically. That was a better term. Comically…

Groaning, Zim looked over his shoulder to view the spotted trail of his own skin, fabric and hemolymph stretching after him. The front half of his uniform had been completely torn off, exposing his battered, peeled-up torso in all its newly and utterly filthy glory. His face wasn't faring much better... How annoying. Even the stupid girl human was faring better than he was…

In delirium, the ragged pair stared passively at each other a moment. Spitting some of the blood off her lip, Gaz spoke first.

"You look like crap," she said, coming to stand.

Zim ignored the sticky fluids beading and rolling from the gashes along his face, arms, and upper body as he rose to his elbows. He, too, spat, though his had more soil in it. "My injuries… A-Aren't as superfluous as _yours_ ," he mocked, the back of his uniform hanging over his scrawny form like a ragtag cape, "Do not insult Zim when your physical state is less-"

"Alright, that's enough. We need better games."

They turned around to the monster, lingering meters away. It's leer was callous and mildly entertained, viewing them like insects it intended to pluck apart segment by segment.

"We'll work our way up," it deliberated, "All gradual-like..."

This said, the thing raised its big, sharp claws to the base of its ribs and ploughed right in. From there, it proceeded to rake right on through the tissue. The matter squelched in protest, but apart the talons slit, leaving a deep crevice in wake. There was nothing resembling blood, but light seemed to waft out the wound, from higher up inside the ribs – a very gentle iridescence, but even from a distance they could sense that it was too different to be compared to the light from flash grenades. Milder. Livelier… A hand dug inside, and desecrated it as though it were a meal. The iridescent glow almost wriggled in protest, but it started to spool its hand, and the hand left with a grip full of multi-coloured light - parted from the main source. Once this was completed, the wound sealed shut behind, leaving no trace it'd existed.

Snarling, the light was whipped right into the air, where it spread apart into individual, rounded colours.

Sixty-six balls of light, his PAK relayed. They scattered and crashed around the whole floor in various positions like raindrops, searing dull alchemic circles into the ground and walls in wake.

The stampeding headed their way shut their awe right off. Quickly, Gaz cursed and yanked Zim up by the arm, turning to run as a massive, black crash of shadows erupted where'd they'd once been standing. The blast propelled them up through the air, wildly flailing with their arms connected like silhouetted rag dolls. They each held on instinctively, bracing for the ground to scrape past their bodies again.

However, to at least Gaz's surprise this time, they were halted by Zim's PAK legs. Digging through the dirt, velocity slowed and Zim unceremoniously let the gamer drop to the ground, craning his body forward in preparation to strike.

GIR and the weapons were much further now than before. The Invader loomed overhead, silhouetted and determined regardless. Insane idiot or no, Gaz had to compliment his stones for facing that thing... Either way, she didn't skip a beat.

"Distract it," she instructed, tossing a grenade over to Zim, "I'll get the weapons."

"Get GIR, too," bade Zim with a skillful catch, "He's closer, and we'll have an advantage in the air."

Smoke burst from nowhere right beside him. A set of talons surged forward and sliced right through the air Zim had once been, but the Irken's body was maneuvered out of way and before she could blink plunged a PAK leg right into its eye socket with a cry. Gaz took this as her cue to leave and went away.

Zim forced his body forward, straining to press the limb as far in as it could go in hopes of reaching a brain – should one be waiting in that skull. There was a vaguely apparent puncture where pseudo tissue parted, leaking fire out from the socket. The creature seemed discomforted from this…

There was light from not too far away, but in a fit of single-minded determination, Zim lacked concern. His view was locked into that of his victim, itching to tear the lumbering skull right from the neck...

A pair of human-shaped hands clutching at his PAK leg shook that view.

Zim shot his gaze down. The new figure was small. Smaller than he was. A familiar nutcracker uniform draped over her, ending only at the doll-like hands and at her neck. Dead, dead eyes were staring back up at him. Unwilling fear trickled down his nerves again, freezing him still where he was.

Another mannequin child? Why...? What was it about these things that impacted the adrenal functions…? How could they trap someone in a trance of built up trauma so easily…?! Why was moving such a struggle now?

" _Why are neither of them ever happy to see you?"_ droned the mannequin kid in response. The world seemed to be shifting, like it was in a spoon's reflection.

He flinched from the blurring earth and skewered her through the chest with another PAK leg. She dangled limply, but something was different about this one than the one he'd killed earlier. A dark fluid was dripping from her lips…

Before the Irken could retort, the monster started chuckling. Something, too, was different about it though. The voice and mannerisms had changed entirely, favouring something more… Processed.

All across the mammoth body, various chunks of flesh wriggled apart from each other, exposing in total no less than sixty-six, newly-forged eyes to stare at him from all across the form. And then, instantaneously, the significance of the number clicked in like a bullet.

All of them were utterly dead of emotion, each a dull garnet in shade, and artificial in texture. None of the pupils that'd defined the lifeforms on Earth lingered in their rims, but instead a simple, solid colour peered back… The sort you'd find in an Empire far away from their current trajectory… But too dead to be fully Irken. No. This was a caricature of something else.

Each was zeroed in on him, casting a unified judgement.

Sixty-six. The exact number of eyes peering from Judgementia's Core Control Brain's chassis.

"Come now, _Irken Zim,"_ it crooned, utilizing the pitch of the Alpha-series model as it gradually pinched the limb out from its head. It didn't even look bothered, _"That is no way to utilize a toothpick."_

(-)

Her boots were too heavy. Gaz could hear the struggles going on behind her, just over the blood rushing in her ears. Honestly, she wasn't sure what surprised her more – the fact her heart felt like it was going to crack right off its arteries and dissolve altogether, or the reminder that she even had one. Spots fluttered over her vision and with each step, and she felt the world rock along without her. Reality had become a drunken dance, even more strenuous than usual. The effort it'd take a normal person to run, for her, brought her to a staggering speed-walk. Still, the youngest Membrane only quit when there was no competition. And eventually, lo and behold, she was pancaked right at GIR's side.

They were near one of those circles, but that wasn't her concern. His doggy suit was torn to hell. Silver glinted out from between the rags left, and though the body seemed fine… The interior couldn't have been faring well. Zim's minion seemed quite busy spewing static from his vocal processors, caught in some cycle of raising one arm, and then drawing it back with a troubling whirring noise that was reminiscent of an overheated computer. Grunting, Gaz got on her knees and propped him up to a sitting position.

"Toc-DIRECCCTTffzzzzzzshhhh- t-toquit-" it wailed, "ERROR, ERROfzzssshhhh BROfzzzsssKEN BROKEN I AM SO BROKENNNNNNN-"

Not one to waste time, she popped his head open. Sparking nipped out from cables where its oversized gun was connected. The gamer fiddled with some buttons and disconnected the weapon, which fell uselessly to their side. It had no ammunition left anyway… The cables slunk back into GIR's body, but more sparking was coming from the base of the empty head.

The sparks were being emitted from under a panel. She prepared for the absolute worse upon opening it. Hesitantly, her fingers pinched the metal piece, and pulled it back…

Only two wires were out of their ports.

…First Tak's ship and now this? Talk about an anti-climax. Well. Back they went, then.

GIR jolted and went still, eyes now dead. A Windows XP sound-effect left his speakers as his eyes returned blue…

Then red.

Gaz frowned in distaste. Now, his stupid-mode was obviously completely unhelpful for the current situation, but…

He hopped to his feet with a salute. "SIR unit model 00-2H3 reporting for duty," he recited.

Okay, THAT wasn't right.

She cleared her throat. "Uh, are y-"

 _SQUELCH_

Bright light burst from behind her, traced with sloshy noises. Before she could make her confusion audible, the gamer felt something intangible and prickly. Right on her shoulder.

Something was off. Like something invisible was ruffling the hairs on her neck.

She turned her head to face the source, and saw the silhouetted form of a child standing in the circle, as though literally just summoned. White eyes shone back, framed by pale hair and a expression that seemed to have been slid on like a plastic mask. A nutcracker-esque uniform draped the body, pristine and proud on the form of her missing classmate.

The gamer froze.

Gaz had no friends out of choice. Francine Schmittendorf was a complete stranger – so much so, the gamer had only learned her name after she'd gone missing. She'd expected to see her body on the news at breakfast, shrugging off her loss with a nip of pizza.

Not in front of her, giving her character a look-over with dull, milky pupils.

As she kneeled frozen, the lips of her classmate moved robotically, as though reading a script. _"Only one."_

Another voice joined. _"Just her."_

She turned around. Another kid was staring at her arm. The features were exactly the same – the differing ethnicity, height, sex and hair colour didn't mean jack shit as far as she was concerned. He… It wore the exact same face. Same expression. Same tone.

" _Only one left? Only what?"_

A third loomed further away, digging its gaze into her ear. Gaz looked frantically around. There were six of them already.

" _Only girl?"_

" _More than that…"_

"Who are you?" she glowered, staring anxiously between the lot.

Their words all seemed to interconnect around her, forming an auditory circle of malformed insights that looped her in sound. With every syllable, the rim grew tighter. And deep into her chest, the verses constricted. Bleeding her of secrets. Even when she frantically looked down, away from their pale gazes as though each were the incarnate of Medusa, they kept going…

" _Only one who knows?"_

" _Only one… Only one…"_

" _Only one left."_

" _Only one with eyes."_

"Requesting Directive," GIR said.

" _Only thinker."_

" _Thinker only?"_

She'd read everything Rankle had written about this encounter, but it was now that she entirely understood what he'd meant. What he'd meant and more – no matter how she moved, her body wouldn't budge. Somehow, it was even worse than what he'd written down, and much to her panic each nerve was severed from one another. Vocal chords compressed in on themselves, left too dry to really use. She couldn't so much as breathe properly. All she could do was remain rigid as her mind was peeled apart fold by fold like rotted lettuce. Taking memory by memory to be viewed as they pleased...

 _Stop it_

"Requesting Directive."

The children were approaching. The fear they artificially inflicted frustrated her, but none of her reflexes listened. Her chest quaked from her heart, leeching diseased vibrations beneath her skin. The squelching noises seemed to intensify, and the actual pressure on her body seemed to decrease, but the damage was done and for the life of her no matter how she strained her neck Gaz could not look up, not even when shadows grew over her body. Things were splatting against the ground, and movements that sounded inhuman. Wet clothing and sloshing… Distorting voices… Things were drawing closer…

All she could stare at were her boots. Words showered and dripped down her hair, more distorted than before.

" _Monsters about."_

" _Them or her…?"_

" _Only in head."_

" _Whiner."_

" _Gone when dead, maybe?"_

" _Broken thing."_

" _Never a whiner. Never cried. Not like..."_

" _Brother's crazy."_

" _Not as much as her…"_

"' _Conscience? What's that mom?'"_

" _Don't whine now."_

 _"Don't wanna hurt."_

 _"Hide. Hide it. Hide everything. Hide-"_

 _"Where'd mom go again...?"_

" _Only thing in mind is…"_

"No response is being given. Poking protocol authorized," GIR droned, giving her leg a firm jab.

The contact broke the trance. It forced her nerves to respond, and even though the influence of the creatures threatened to swallow her again Gaz was able to summon enough strength to look up.

She did not scream. But she cursed. Loudly. Fearfully.

"What the fuck WHAT THE FUCK _WHAT THE F-"_

The "children's" skins had been shed during the approach. Oil-like fluids pooled under the fledgling creatures, crumpling together at bizarrely hastened speeds into crude dust. Their shredded shells dangled off positions along their shifted, towering forms, like sagging coats on a rack with tendrils jutting out their empty lips, drifting in the ragged breaths exuding from the many, many mouths of the things they'd apparently covered. Crusted feet, four of them per creature, staggered immaturely over to her, connected to crooked legs to a writhing… "Body", of tendrils and teeth that seemed to be in a cycle of constantly melting and reforming. Each had to be at least eight feet. Walking Lovecraftian nightmares, that emitted horrific squishing sounds whenever they moved.

She noted six of them were circling an eerily stilled Zim further away, much the same manner they were trying for her. Each of their voices were dissipating more and more into monstrous wails the more she woke up – how the hell that worked, Gaz lacked the interest to look into. Either way, they were too goddamn close...!

"Get rid of 'em," she swallowed, backing up, only to find they'd circled her, "K-Kill them, dammit!"

"Weapons compromised," relayed GIR. Almost comically, none of this bothered the robot. He just seemed unable to really sense the danger.

Didn't matter, they were lumbering closer. Gaz snarled. _"Then get me out of here!"_

"Affirmative!" GIR activated his rockets and grabbed the gamer by the leg, blasting off from the ring of creepy horrors. Gaz grimaced as she watched them get further away. The misanthrope could remember the last time she'd been left shaking from _anything_ traumatic, and that had been a long time ago.

(-)

Question marks.

Easily Zim's most hated punctuation. Probably the most hated out of any Latin character – there was nothing about it he liked. He didn't like how others applied it to him, or how it'd corrupt ordinary sentences with the raise of an octave, or how Dib never stopped using them in everything he was presented. Hated how its top cheated being short by disconnecting from the ground, and how it curved like a fish-hook. Hated how those shapes currently plunged through his mind, down to the depths for interesting information to snag. How they cut through what should've been indisputable – facts that might as well've been carved in stone were nothing in the face of these terrible letters. Zim avoided them whenever he could, but now he was being forced to ingest their hooks by the triple digits. Each inconsistency, each weaknesses was stirred right up for the monster to enjoy. Reeled to the surface by the eyes of the children, going dead and dry and ugly in their dangling world.

Questions, questions...

They were so stupid, he couldn't believe he'd even _concealed_ these horrible inquiries. In fact, it was easier to believe that they were not his own, that they'd merely been planted in there by the monster out of sadism to trip his psyche up. Maybe they had. He could not say.

Questions piled about the Empire. About the Tallest. About the Brains. About him. About their loyalty. About Tak. About Dib...

Hundreds for each subject, and they all came at him so fast, he couldn't think of a good lie for anyone by the time they'd been replaced by kin. Away they bounced, churning between his brain and his PAK to cancer right in the core of his squeedily-spooch. A sick weight of words, bogging down.

It was some sort of spell, he'd come to realize. As faulty as Zim's emotional inhibitor was, it was never _this_ awful. He'd wrestled their attempts to break him, he had. But they'd proven to be too much in such an awful way, he'd almost have to applaud them for their inventiveness – see, the monster hadn't moved much at all at first. It preferred to leave Zim squirming between the gazes of it and the kids as he struggled to stab every one of them. But critically wounded or no, those kids had always gotten right back up, even when sections of their plastic shells had crumbled. Always, they stitched together again, their dark insides being leaked didn't matter. And always, they kept staring and murmuring.

Always, the eyes healed.

After his nerves had finally been corroded over, his neck was redirected to the many, many gazes in the blackness. The vaguely Irken ones, processed to seem friendlier to the people the Brains directed. Their Dib-murdering shell had vanished some time ago, leaving just a set of retinas that were filled with awful memories. He watched them uncensored, (the more recent ones, anyway) lurking in the red waters like fish. Those horrible question marks were independently being formed in him, too, but to drop the line as the beast had… To even attempt such a felony… To hook those sinful, uncut thoughts and fill his belly with them…

" _IRKEN INVADER ZIM, FOR SINGLEHANDEDLY RUINING OPERATION IMPENDING DOOM... ...YOU WILL BE RE-ENCODED. NO LONGER AN INVADER, YOU WILL BE FOREVER BANISHED TO THE IRKEN SNACKING PLANET OF FOODCOURTIA."_

" _Thank you... Invader Zim! Without your efforts out there, the… heh! …The entire operation would..."  
"Hahahaha!"  
"…heheh, would surely crumble...!"_

 _"You are no commander: you are a threat to the mission! Your methods are stupid! Your progress has been stupid! Your intelligence is stupid! For the sake of the mission – YOU MUST BE TERMINATED!"_

" _So, whaddaya think? Defective or innocent?"  
"Oh, ZIM? Defective, all the way. This Evaluation's just a formality so they can get rid of ZIM officially…"_

They murmured too many awful words. His body had grown heavy.

" _OKAY! Break's over! LET'S GET THIS FORMALITY OVER WITH!"_

" _We've seen enough. Zim – you've been nothing but a curse to the Empire. If Tallest Miyuki or Spork were here, they'd say so, too..."_

" _IRKEN ZIM's I.D PAK is damaged and has led to a corrupt data path. HE IS... A DEFECTIVE."_

"… _He's a DEFECTIVE!" Tallest Purple wailed, "You ALREADY RULED!"_

? Lies. All of them. ? Li?e?s. Funny senses of humour ? the Tallest were funny people the Control Brains ? were probably funny too ?

?great big machines ? with codes for person?alities needed a laugh too maybe they just ?

?

maybe they just ?

maybe he just brought ?them ?joy ?

?

maybe?

may?be ? ? ?

"Maybe it's time you stopped running," the Control Brain spoke. There'd been so many holes burned into him by the eyes, it was a surprise he was still intact at all. Hot breath fell over his whole, wretched body – accompanied by a straining sound, like a massive set of jaws were unhinging, "...And simply accept that your best use is to disappear."

Zim was dead of sound. Motionless of spirit. As shadows fell over him, he found he was kinda happy he couldn't see the creature's eyes anymore – just the lines of teeth. A mess of Zims stared back in each enamel, small, genuinely knowing his burdens, and very tired in this swallowed knowledge.

So small…

 _(no!)_

Perhaps this w-

Rockets fizzed past. And Gaz yelled somewhere.

His antenna flinched as a massive roar exploded over the whole room, and over him. The enamels ceased shrouding him and aimed all over the place. Upwards, to the robot that had uppercut their lower jaw, and downward, bellowing profanity after profanity to the small child several feet below that'd stuck its foot with her bat. Good and woken up from the horrible trance, Zim found his lower half snared in the monster's palm, the horrible memories gone from immediate sight. Disturbing as hell monsters circled below the monster's grip, and unable to really do anything, he just… Watched the show.

Gaz Membrane stood at her full height beneath its knee, glaring right back up at the miscreation. The girl was deranged, decorated by lines of blood trailing from cuts all along her form, and had her equally white teeth pulled into a frown. You'd almost forget she was human, even with the shuddering from her exhaustion in play.

After she'd inspired its deepest rage, apparently, it decided she was funny. So, it chuckled condescendingly and snatched her legs by the tail, lifting the girl to eye-level. Its pitch changed again, but this time… It seemed to be using a woman's voice to address her.

"Don't be so upset," it grinned to her, opening its maw to show of the dark expanse of its throat, "Everyone gets a turn…"

Gaz froze right there, eyes wide. Whatever it'd used seemed to chill her to her core. Zim meanwhile used this opportunity to chuck his grenade in.

Its eyes comically widened. It went back to the normal voice again.

"SON OF A-"

It probably had attempted to regurgitate it back up, hence why it burst in its throat. Its foot stamped violently and it dropped Zim, backing off to scrape madly at its whole body as it went back into the same void as it had earlier. The pair fell not too far apart, gasping to stand. There was little time to lose, as the fellow monsters crowded around still. Zim looked over at his unlikely (and oddly lost-looking) partner in crime, defensively crossing his arms.

"…Eh… …Zim was a perfect diversion," he feebly muttered. He looked to his boots, urgently trying to edit the memory of that showdown into something… Not as horrible.

 _Purge it, purge it,_ he thought, _Purge, purgepurgepurgepurgepurgepur_

She shook her head, trying to snap out of her funk. "F-For crying out loud, you give Princess Peach a run for her money," Gaz muttered back, "Also, before you freak out," she pointed to the mass of creepy, multi-mouthed tendril monsters thundering over to them, "I have no idea what those things are, but the plastic kids can't hypnotize you as easily like that. I don't know why. Maybe the plastic covering them was magic or something, or they can't talk in that form as well. It doesn't make much sense-"

"G-EEEEAAAHHHH! GIR!" Zim shrieked like a pansy as the lumbering abominations trampled forward to their position, letting out inhuman bays all the way, "Take us to the weapons _immediately!"_

"YES MY LORD!" GIR swooped down and shot away with the fairly traumatized kids. The monsters pursued loudly, but their multiple legs were no match for standard-Irken-issued rockets.

GIR politely let them go a ruler's-worth off the ground. Quickly, Zim rolled to the ground and plunged his hands into the jacket, finding all the plasma-based weapons he could. Their only known way of defense through those tendrils. Four pistols and one rifle. He tossed Gaz two pistols and began snapping the spare rifle together.

"Do these things have rounds?" she asked, eyeing the beasts stampeding their way.

"They should be good for about… Forty uses. After that, they'll explode," he explained, daring to grin upon hearing the ends click together.

Gaz tugged the rifle away from Zim and open fired on the front line. A pink, sizzling beam burst through and burned through at least three layers of their tissue. Each mouth opened to scream – lights flickered inside, each one in a different position inside each cretin. Souls, she figured. There was one she'd fully exposed, and that vanished altogether. The others stopped from the damage, but quickly mended their flesh together and resumed running.

She turned, expecting Zim to be there to help her cowboy' it up all the way to the main circle, only to find he'd started climbing the walls with his PAK legs while GIR flew at his side, essentially leaving her for dead against the hoard.

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?!" she exploded after him.

Zim looked down dumbly. "You will distract them while Zim blows up the main circle-thing. It's genius, yes?"

"NO - I'LL DIE, YOU STUPID FUCK!" she shouted, firing frantically at the creatures swarming her. Two more disappeared, but in a herd of sixty three that meant little. Wounded Lovecraftian horrors just meant an annoying blockade to step over in order to reach the drained ten year old.

"Oh, do not be angry, Gaz-human, eh…" he looked around nervously. His PAK limbs brought him higher up, leaving his body to cross its legs as though he were sitting in contemplation on some barstool, "…Eh… Perseverance is the key? You simply…Eh…"

That glare would've been enough to make Sizz-Lorr give up altogether. Zim grinned nervously, considering his options. If Gaz survived – unlikely, but then again, like her brother she often broke human expectations – the monster would be the last thing to concern himself with. An angry, revitalized Gaz was a hell no one dared enter...

"…GIR! Heh! Uh… Support the Gaz human against the stampede of hideous tentacle beasts!" he clapped his hands gingerly, "Yeees. Ha. That, uh…" human females didn't destroy people who complimented them, right? "Zim thinks your capabilities of spreading untold doom and terror are lovely!"

Several shots broke through the storm of monsters. Gaz's reply was louder.

" _KILL YOURSELF."_

"O-Okay," Zim muttered, speeding his ascent, "Have, uh… Have fun..."

The way up wasn't terribly smooth. His instincts were deeply bothered. You see, the monster had still not emerged, but the tendrils had shot right back up out of the circle, layered on like squirming spaghetti as though it already _had_. The Irken frowned at this. Something was off...

Some of those smaller circles it'd cast on the walls kept spitting out more multi-legged monsters. Every time Gaz and GIR disintegrated one, it'd come back out twenty seconds later through some surface all over again. And the ones in the walls wanted him dead more. They were relatively sluggish on the walls, so avoiding them wasn't too difficult…

…But avoiding the main monster tearing claws-first out one of the sub-circles, before charging after him like a teleporting train rather was.

"HOW?!" he yelped dropping down several feet as it tore past. He reattached to the wall of course, but he was still precariously positioned diagonally-down from its path. "HOW DID YOU- I THOUGHT YOU NEEDED THE MAIN ONE-"

"Wow, it's almost like I _made_ these little doors, or something!" it licked its lips as it slowed, "In fact… Gee! It's almost like that main circle's _strong_ enough, I can _channel its power into any of the smaller ones!_ ...Y'know, for an 'advanced creature', your intelligence is more than a bit disappointing."

Before Zim could really react, an all-too-familiar tail crushed around his shoulders. Again. This time making sure his PAK legs were seized in turn. His body was cruelly turned in air, and with fearful grunt its gore-caked talons pinched his head to look at the fight occurring down below.

"Anyhow, bug. Time for your boot. _Look down,"_ it hushed all too close to his antenna, "See that? Those broken little pals you've got, just staggering to fight off my cheapest toys? _Those were your cavalry._ They're gonna be ash soon. Just like your dreams. Just like your home in this city. And _when_ I'm through with city? I'll keep going," it squeezed tighter, prompting Zim to choke mid-squirm. It almost purred as it continued, giving his scalp a gentle, bloody stroke.

"When I get enough power, I'll be able to make _big_ doors all by myself. Know what that means? 'Means I'll go all over this miserable planet, devouring life after life. When popping human lives in like grapes by themselves gets boring?: I'll hit schools. I'll hit hospitals. I'll hit entire metropolises in fell swoops. _By the thousands._ And when I've had my fill, this whole world, and many after it, will be my playground, my _platter_ , and do you know what anyone, anywhere, will be able to do about it? _Nothing_. Because there can only be one god, space bug. And…"

It gave him a none-too-affectionate squeeze with a hungry grin.

"…Really? Come on. It never was gonna be you."

Squishing the Invader to a choking extent(almost literally crushing his words), the creature unlatched itself from the wall and plunged to the floor - slamming its victim down first. The impact shredded through Zim's form and triggered various crunching noises throughout the Irken's skeletal structure, and much to Zim's horror he soon found his ribs cracked and his legs utterly immobile.

Mid-yowling, as if to mock him, the tail coiling his torso lifted him tauntingly about five feet in the air. Zim's upper-body vainly struggled in excruciation while his legs limply dangled, wrestling all his strength to free his hyperventilating form but to no avail. A calm, red-velvet glow basked out the creature's eye-sockets as it smiled genially to his face, letting its tail slowly slither itself away. Unceremoniously, he was dropped face-first into the muck. Pain seared through his nerves. And to finish it off, before he could even recover, the creature's hoof nudged him to his back and slammed onto his arm, squashing it from the shoulder like a bird's wing.

Zim squeezed his eyes shut and howled out in agony. Hot, rotting breath streamed past his face, and he thrashed his neck about best he could to escape the scent - it only escalated the pain but for Tallest sake he couldn't bear any of this. Smelled awful. Felt awful. Everything was broken and his legs wouldn't work. A thick liquid splattered on his cheek…

His regeneration factor must've been having a field day…

Against fear, he dared open his eyes to face his soon-to-be killer and found it sporting the same, awful grin mere inches away. Saliva drizzled down the visage leaning over him, concealing a sea of canines under its upturned lips. The head alone dwarfed his whole body…

Nestled inside every living Irken's squeedily-spooch was a cardiovascular unit. And away his sped, like a sugar-high locomotive in his chest, faster than it'd ever gone in memory.

"Comfy?" it asked in that same monotone, "Good. Business will commence, defect."

Demurely, it just curled one finger against the scab lining his stomach. One, filthy claw pressed ever so gently against the thin, translucent line – as if teasing the wound.

It broke through. Then it dug in. And then it met its mark.

Like a pair of fish-hooks, its digits snared a tiny chunk of Zim's squeedily-spooch. His organ squelched in protest and started moving sporadically at the contact. Breathing hurt, yet Zim couldn't stop swallowing buckets of oxygen either way, spilling air with his hemolymph and his yowls to cease.

And just like that it yanked the segment out like a band aid.

A long, bawling noise left him as it was stripped from its bulk. The portion extracted was a wriggling little piece – a fraction of the digestive system, probably, couldn't have been much larger than a coin. And just like that, the pink flesh was discarded right over the monster's shoulder, as though it were a three-leafed clover.

"Loves me…"

It dug back in. The Irken trashed and screamed as _another_ little segment was excruciatingly hooked.

He was practically convulsing where he lay, hemolymph spilling over his lips and choking his pleas to cease. His hand gripped the monster's and tried to shake it free, get out get out please

It tugged again.

He screamed again.

"Loves me not!" over its shoulder, it went.

"Y-YOU SICK…!" screeched Zim, "STOP, STOP! IF YOU'RE TO KILL ME THEN DO IT NOoOoOW!" he choked on his own fluids, "S-STOP THIIIiiis PL _eaSE juST stOP-!"_

 _"FWEH-HEH-EHEHEHEHEHEH!"_ it cackled, "YOU'RE _FUN!_ MOST OF THESE INSECTS WOULD'VE DIED FROM THE FALL ALONE!"

"WHAAA-huT EVE-VeN ARE YOU?!" Zim wailed, "W-WHY MUST YOU DEFILE ZIIIIIM'S Lu-LIFE?!"

"Heh. 'What am I'... Question of a lifetime, isn't it?" it purred, leaning in, "I suppose it's the same as you, defect," it hissed lowly, "Same as your friend there, and your dead boyfriend - an _ABOMINATION_. Nothing more, and nothing less. You understand, right?"

Zim gurgled. His tongue bled.

"Fweh-heh. Doesn't matter," it grinned, leaning in, "I can feel your _soul_ , kid - I can feel what I took, what's left. It's sloshing around in there, y'know, tired and fr-"

Scarlet light abruptly exploded from behind them. Except this time, it startled the monster, too. The two non-humans stared at the swarming light and cackling power exploding out suddenly from the cracks between the dying tendrils.

Ash from the tendril-nest fanned upwards from the heat. Above her, like a halo, GIR swerved in circles with the plasma pistols in hand, tearing through monster after falling monster approaching. Pink, deadly glows filtered through the quasi-confetti-wings, and behind her crumbling curtain of destruction, Gaz stood with a sleek, derisive, yet prideful glare.

"Hey. Guess I'm fun too," she spat.

It forgot all about Zim. Shaking with a burning emotion, it withdrew its fingers, and slowly began walking towards her.

Then it got on all fours and starting screeching in rage.

Gaz tossed the plasma rifle away, and gripped her trusty bat instead. The monster tore through from the other side of the room, on her within ten seconds. It's massive body took for the air in a curving pounce, jaws stretched apart as its saliva glistened. At least three hundred little girls her size would've fit in that maw, and she could see hundreds more sets of her eyes reflecting back from the monster's teeth.

She didn't flinch.

Gaz lunged for its chest, to where the stake was just beginning to creep out the flesh. It caught on to what she was about to do too late – with all the strength left in her arms, the girl smashed.

Home run.

It bellowed, its form unhinging on itself. It clenched in, pushing its flesh together, but its fingers started unravelling and fell to the ground, twitching. It glared at her, beginning to disintegrate all together.

"Thiiisss… ISN'T OVER… I HAVE MORE THAN ONE DOOR, KIDS!" it boasted to the two, "I WILL END YOU BOTH, ONE WAY – _OR ANOTHER!"_

"Nice try…" grunted the gamer, staggering to her feet, "You're holding on by just a thread... You wouldn't have tried to protect this circle so bad if it were _that_ disposable. Face it: you're an eldritch abomination who got done in by some dumb kids – namely me. It's a game over. Accept it."

"D…Did I, now…? Fweh…EHEHEHEH! …Huh-ow about some trivia, then, Skulls: Did you know, it takes more effort for this door to keep me in your world, than it does for my tu-toys?" it curled its distorting lips up menacingly, "…And that… There's s-so much magic being unleashed from the break in the lines, I could… I could manipulate it to drag you all down to my home with me if I so much as snuh-snapped my fingers?"

Before either of them could say a word, it snapped its fingers and the magic turned a sickening, chunky black.

" _OOPS!"_ it teased, "I geh-guess you guys only have thu-thirty minutes to flee this _whole damn_ _building_ now that it's being dragged into the deep depths of Spooky Realm… Sucks to be you! Oh, and it's dangerous for tots like yourselves to go alone, so please, _do_ enjoy the company of my underlings," it dug into the light etching from its chest, and much like before unleashed more soul-rain-stuff to sear another hundred or so circles all around them. Mannequin children started to rise from them, moaning like creepers. "Also, I have a special gift for you two – 'specially you, Skulls – as a bonus! …But, given its unique nature, I'm afraid it'll be a little bit late to the party. Don't worry, though: trust me, you'll know when you see it!"

It looked her over hungrily. "Actually, I think I'll give you an additional bonus gift, to make up for the wait. Right now," it purred. Its malformed hand crackled with power and before she could move, it slammed its palm right into her eye. Gaz shrieked as the impact shred through her veins and deep into her dermis, feeling awash with something invasive and awful. Her body fell back to the ground, flailing and housing the glowing orifice in her hand.

"GEEYAAAAHHHH!" she hollered, agony filling her form so thoroughly.

Of course, the Abomination laughed at her. "Merry early Christmas! Lord knows it's better than anything your daddy got you!" its malforming tail scratched at its chin in mock thought. "Is that everything…? Hmm. I think so. Ta-ta, children! I'll see you once more, when the moon good and _weird_."

And then it vanished, just like that.

Meanwhile, left shuddering in pain on the ground, Zim's PAK clock beeped.

 _Thirty minutes until shut-down._

* * *

 **A/N: (Mini crack-exchange my sister thought of:**

 **Gaz: Zim, wait! I love you! Please come back!**

 **Zim: I'M GAAAAAAAY, BITCH. *middle fingers and leaves to shitty swag-meme music***

 **Cute innit? Anyhow HOO-BOY! I DID IT. THAT WAS HELL.**

… **now for the next one. ;-; pray for me. if that sucker's gonna be as difficult as this one, I think I might need it...**


End file.
